Band:	Inactive Messiah
Album:	Sinful Nation
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	April 28, 2008
A review by:	Bas

01. Satyricus
02. Soulless
03. Chosen One
04. Failure
05. Theatrical World
06. Sinful Nation
07. Showdown
08. Eat My Flesh And Drink My Blood
09. Forged In Flames
10. From Birth To Death
11. Like An Endless Lament

Sinful Nation is the third output by the Greek metal band Inactive Messiah. The album opens with an extremely promising symphonic intro followed by a solid melodic death metal track, nice, symphonic melo-death, that was my first thought. Unfortunately the symphonic parts are not present or only in the background on most of the songs. In my opinion the only track on which the symphonic elements really shine is "Theatrical World".

Quite disappointing actually, but let's rather talk about what Inactive Messiah give us as opposed to what they don't. This music is very similar to Septic Flesh, who also happen to hail from Greece. Or if you don't know them you can imagine the music as a mix of Moonspells' latest output and Arch Enemy. The growls and extremely rough and have a kind of gurgling quality to them, imagine Arch Enemy's Angela Gossow but a bit heavier and manlier and you can get a pretty close idea. The drumming is fast and extremely tight most of the time, not much variation, but it supports the riffs well enough.

Similar to most melodic death metal acts the guitar section forms the bulk of this bands sound. There are some nice guitar parts on here, the riffs and leads are usually dark and have a very "full" sound to them. Some of them are also quite awesome, for example the part one minute into the first track. They're mainly midtempo with a few faster parts in between.

Like I already said I think it's a big shame that the symphonic elements aren't stronger, because that's what could have made this album stand out from all the other melodic death metal bands that are floating around the scene. As it is, they have a few nice songs, some good riffs and nice tight drumming, but well, they don't offer anything new and there are better bands around.

If you're into melodic death metal or are looking for bands similar to Septic Flesh then go ahead and check it out, it's really not a bad album. However if you're not deeply into the style I'd recommend you to just go with the better albums, there's nothing new on this one. Especially since it doesn't sport much variation on it's 50 minutes running time and tends to get boring towards the end.