Band:	Orpheus Omega
Album:	Bleed The Way
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	February 18, 2011
Guest review by:	Evican

01. Neath (The Shadow Of The Monolith)
02. Winds Of Change
03. Unscathed
04. Common Enemy
05. Face Of Vengeance
06. Societies Of Steel
07. Sealed In Fate
08. For All It's Worth
09. A Thousand Times
10. Grin Of Madness

This is the debut release for young Melbourne band Orpheus. However you wouldn't hastily jump to that conclusion after giving the first track a whirl, as this band has effectively grasped the Euro Melodic Death Metal sound with great ease and high expectation.

The album features everything you've come to expect from melodic death metal: thick-walled guitars, crushing bass and complimenting keyboard melodies. You'll find that unlike a number of melodic death metal bands that use keyboards, Orpheus don't have them in your face and above the guitars in the mix, they are in the background but still defined, a lot of the time used as a decorative filler during a short break in a guitar riff. As many metal fans believe that keyboards have no place in metal (largely because a great number of bands just don't use them properly), Orpheus has found the happy medium and it is definitely a noticeable attribute to this album and their talents as musicians and songwriters. (And sometimes, less is just more!)

To be quite honest, this album resembles the likes of Mors Principium Est's Liberation = Termination and fellow Australian band Universum's Leto Destinatus (upon which Tomy Laisto is a guest soloist). In addition the vocalist even sounds like Ville Viljanen of Mors Principium Est. Whether that was intentional or not, who knows? Unlike the aforementioned, though, there is far less repetition among songs. The end of one song and the beginning of the next is clearer and makes for a much more enjoyable listen and doesn't make it feel like you're listening to one 50-minute song.

I would love to rate this higher based on the fact that this band is just starting out and have created a brilliant debut album, but they have not yet defined themselves as a standout Melodeath act, and I say that because they have the potential to. This album will definitely appeal to fans of Mors Principium Est, Insomnium and Dark Tranquillity.