Band:	Chapel Of Disease
Album:	...And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye
Style:	Melodic death metal, Heavy metal, Progressive rock
Release date:	November 23, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. Void Of Words
02. Oblivious - Obnoxious - Defiant
03. Song Of The Gods
04. Null
05. 1000 Different Paths
06. The Sound Of Shallow Grey

Moving away from an old-school death metal sound is a hit or miss, but I guess Chapel Of Disease never miss, huh?

Chapel Of Disease turned some heads in the death metal community with their previous two albums, which were some very doomy and esoteric old-school death metal albums, but, after all, cut-above-the-rest riff-fests are still not that innovative or forward-thinking. Three years afterwards, comes ...And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye, which completely turns what they did on its head. But considering how some of the biggest melodeath names started out as usual death metal bands (think Hypocrisy, Unleashed or At The Gates), it shouldn't be something unseen before. A lot of death metal nods to the '80s often just feature nods to thrash metal, but never too much hard rock, and even when they do, death 'n' roll doesn't have such a good reputation.

It's quite fucking clear that Chapel Of Disease are no longer afraid to make their music lighter and... dare I say... happier and more confident? It's such a strange combination that it keeps bugging me that I don't know whether I like it or not. It certainly feels like it could be more polished, but the way it sounds really shouldn't work but it does. The band keeps a bit of their trademark sound, mostly in the vocals and some of the sections feel like they "should", but other than that, it's really, really weird. I can't really call it death 'n' roll but it's not melodic death metal either, and that really hits my music-forum-user OCD. This feels like hard rock for people who don't like hard rock and death metal for people who don't like death metal, though I'm sure there will be fans of both who will just not like this at all.

Even though I'm not sure I actually enjoy the mix, I can't deny that it's really engaging and fun to listen to in a slightly challenging way. The music feels like arena rock sometimes, like psychedelic jam rock sometimes; some songs have vocals reminiscent of gothic rock, and one of the songs even has a solo that feels straight-up taken from a live version of Dire Straits "Sultans Of Swing". Who would've thought that that would ever go together with cavernous death growls? It's maddening. I love it, even if I may not enjoy it.

Sure, there's some tweaks here and there to be made, like I'd love it to be a bit more focused and polished, but at this point I'd rather have an imperfect ambitious record than a perfect safe one. If there's any way to leave your trademark genre for a rockier sound, this is the way to do it, unlike... you know.

So give it a shot.