ERA DECAY - Inritum

Era Decay - Inritum (2016, self-released)

Since it is not the main subject of this Music/Metal blog, I don’t mention often that I am an avid snowboarder. As with every product of consumption nowadays, the offer of snowboards is as vast as the wide array of subgenres from Death Metal. The Romanians of Era Decay are labeled as Doom/Death Metal but as any snowboard out there many labels can be applied to its versatility. It is the case for ED’s interpretation of the genre. Their latest release, Inritum, is a blend of Melodic Death Metal with Doom and many elements of old school Death Metal.

There is more than just an angle on this album, as the approach is closer to straight up DM, Folk instruments make a presence here and there and female clean vocals bring a My Dying Bride depth to their ending songs. The guitar driven melodies are at times reminiscent of Classic Metal especially in the embedded track. Then the dynamic ‘’Beyond Delirium’’ is the second longest song at ‘’5 :09’’ with no songs coming over the six minutes mark we have a twelve song album that doesn’t drags and feels like it never looses breath.

Speaking of the guitars, the mix puts them and the vocals way up front to the detriment of the drums and bass guitars. As aforementioned, the album is well edited and it is not a question of length but a question of the quality of the mastering. It gives a feeling of compressed music and the analog feeling of Death Metal gets lost in the mix. Death Doom has this approach to be cleaner than actual Death metal but it would be a better album with an airier mix.

Era Decay isn’t doing lacy Metal and their interpretation of Doom/Death Metal is very muscular and besides swooping guitars in ‘’Sharp Words’’ and the inclusion of Folk instruments they have made a ferocious blend of many genres. For an obscure reason,  I couldn’t rank it higher in my ratings because there is this Melodic element that is not doing it for me even if I headbanged real hard on ‘’Repugnance’’ and I think that they have it in them. Other than that and the already highlighted aspects of this platter, this is a good album that delivers.

7.0