Band:	Vildhjarta
Album:	Thousands Of Evils
Style:	Djent, Progressive math metal
Release date:	September 30, 2013
Guest review by:	Calabi

01. Introduction: Staos
02. Längstmedån
03. Dimman
04. Regnar Bensin
05. En Mörk Vit Lögn
06. Dimman Från Lützen
07. Intermezzo
08. Mist Förståndet

If you want to find that Djent gem you've been looking for to win you over, it's here, and it's Thousands of Evils.

There's three kinds of Djent, and then there's Vildhjarta.

You've got your Periphery-esque corey bands, you've got your Meshuggah-esque thrashier bands, you've got your TesseracT-Ambidjents, and you think, "Well, now I've heard everything."

That's before you hear Vildhjarta. Vildhjarta is mandatory Djent listening. You are not allowed to make an opinion on Djent as a whole until you listen to Periphery, TesseracT, Meshuggah, and Vildhjarta.

It's different than those. It mixes Meshuggah and TesseracT together to create what I affectionately call "Meshuggah songs written by humans". The end result is something that doesn't sound like Meshuggah very much, and doesn't sound like TesseracT. It's Meshuggah plus emotion, and TesseracT plus scary.

Lineup changes from Måsstaden include one less guitarist, which frankly changes very little as having three guitarists was unnecessary in the first place, and a high-range rasp vocalist change. I'm not gonna lie, it took me almost half the album to realize that there was a new vocalist at all. He sounds that similar. If you've only listened to Måsstaden a few times, you won't notice the difference. Which is good, because I liked the old guy, and therefore I like the new guy.

Enough about that, let's talk about the album.

Vildhjarta's still creepy. They still have, outside of TesseracT, the best atmosphere in Djent. The guitar work is faster and more complex than Måsstaden, which leads me to believe that the third guitarist was a third wheel for the band, and the end result is a lot more elephant noises (see: "Regnar Bensin"). The drum work doesn't occasionally spiral out of control like it did on Måsstaden, which is good. It's not as interesting as it was, but only slightly less so.

I am a firm believer in album openers and closers making or breaking an album, so let's mention those.

"Staos" is...okay. It's a good song, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't portray what the album holds very well. It opens with some nice atmosphere (+), then goes into some odd blast-beaty parts that don't come out very well (-) and turns into conventional Vildhjarta for the rest of the song, peppered with more strange blast-beaty parts (neutral). It's probably the weakest on the album, which is a shame considering it's the first song you hear. The album would be significantly better if it was elsewhere on the album, and "Längstmedån" was Track #1.

But all of that is okay, because "Mist Förståndet" is amazing. It's the second-best song on the album, behind "Längstmedån". It goes on for three minutes, fades out, fades back in, goes into this nice slow droney riff with clean vocals, transitions perfectly into harsh vocals, ends with one long double scream and leaves you sitting there for ten seconds, floored. An album closer is supposed to transition sound into no sound with minimal impact, and Vildhjarta does it wonderfully here.

The only other thing worth noting are the poor production values; they were great on Måsstaden, but I guess they just dropped the ball this time. It's not awful, but it's worse than it was.

Overall, this album is an amazing twenty-four minute trip through whatever twisted world Vildhjarta lives in (Sweden). It is absolutely worth a listen, and while I'm angry I waited two years for only 24 minutes of music, I shouldn't be, because 24 minutes of quality music is better than 50 minutes of crap.