The Order Of Apollyon - The Sword And The Dagger

If nothing else, these guys certainly know how to get right down to business. Fast, hard, blunt. The drums sound triggered and a little too digital, but they still got my foot tapping more than once. Blast-beat abusers, but the transitions to double bass can be quite thrilling. The riffs are decent, but derivative. Expect lots of mediocre tremolo. There is some pleasant and purposeful use of bass guitar to increase groove such as on "Our Flowers are the Sword?" The vocals are pretty bland imo. No conviction, not particularly evil, aggressive, or emotive. They should at least meet one of those requirements. Dark atmosphere, but song-writing needs a lot of work.
Enjoyability=7
Musicianship=6
Innovation=5
Overall=6.7

Excellent blackened death metal album, which I thought was a consistent, solid listen from start to finish. The overall dark atmosphere is here in spades but what really impressed me was the quality of guitar work and its ability to segue into slightly more atmospheric sounds, such as on the album's best tracks, "Al'ankabout' and "The Curse is Poured Upon Them". Otherwise the songwriting here is solid, but the instrumentation makes this a fluent, engaging listen in my opinion.