Band:	Nightrage
Album:	Descent Into Chaos
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	February 21, 2005
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Being Nothing
02. Phantasma
03. Poems
04. Descent Into Chaos
05. Frozen [feat. Mikael Stanne]
06. Drug
07. Silent Solitude
08. Omen
09. Release
10. Solus
11. Jubilant Cry
12. Reality Vs. Truth

I guess most of you, fans of (melodic) Death Metal, knows who Nightrage are, but for all of you that missed their debut "Sweet Vengeance" from 2003, I can tell you that this is a kind of all-star Death Metal band, with Swedish and Greece members. Among the most famous you'll find ex- At the Gates & ex- The Crown growler Tomas Lindberg behind the microphone and the guitar virtuoso Gus. G (ex- Dream Evil, Firewind, Mystic Prophecy) on guitar, together with bandleader Marios Illiopoulos (Exhumation) on Guitar, Fotis Bernado (ex- Sceptic Flesh) on Drums and Henric Karlsson (Cipher System) on Bass.
The last two are new since the debut; they replaced bassist Brice Leclercq (Dissection) and drummer Per M. Jensen (The Haunted) that left Nightrage.

So I guess you understand that this isn't the regular Death Metal band, this is really a talented one, and with no less than Tomas Lindberg on vocals.
Another thing that happened since the debut is that the music is much more brutal, Nightrage is moving further and further away from the Gothenburg style they had on the debut (even if you'll find some songs like that here too, like "Drug"), this is much harder and faster, and you won't get the usual melodic riffing together with growls or clean vocals, Nightrage is more rage, more anger, they sounds pissed off

"Descent Into Chaos" is what the band entitled their new album, and chaos is a very good way to describe the music. Angry Death Metal, without going over the edge and become Brutal Death Metal, and that's lucky for me, since I'm no fan of that music.
But anyway, since the debut, that was "softer" and had its melodic touches, Nightrage added a great potion of Anger and created their second album.

On the debut, they had guest musicians, and this album is no exception. Last time Tom Englund from Evergrey contributed with clean vocals. This time Nightrage added Mikael Stanne from Dark Tranquillity to do some clean vocals in the song "Frozen" a good choice since Stanne might be the only real Gothenburg-vocalist that's still got what it takes.

Personally I liked their debut better, I really got into that material in another way, but this isn't bad, not bad at all, maybe the best harder Death Metal album I heard in a long time, and I know it will be played a lot more in the future, exactly as their debut did.

Do you miss the time when At the Gates slaughtered the world with their releases? Well, then I think I can make you a happy man with recommend Nightrage to you, here you'll get songs that easily could be written by At the Gates when they were around. And with Tomas on vocals won't make the similarities less, here you have a re-spawn of At the Gates, directly from hell!

Check Out: "Descent Into Chaos", "Frozen", "Released" & "Poems".