Album Reviews : Destinity – The Inside

Destinity have been around the French metal scene for the last 12 years and have had pretty steady success with previous releases and tours, with such bands as Cradle of Filth, Decapitated and Immolation. The band have recently released their forth studio album entitled “The Inside”, through their latest signing to Life Force Records.

The band started from humble begins as a black metal band in Lyon, France back in 1996. Their sound grew to a much more symphonic black/death metal motif on their last releases, and now the band have shifted into a new breed of sound. The new album has a more trashy approach to their previous releases, yet still holds an undeniable melodic death metal structure to it all, with hard hitting drums on the attack and blistering guitar work followed close by which have a vague similarity to the sounds of Arch Enemy, most notably on their opening track “My Senseless Theory”.

More… The guitar work on this album is amazing, the sheer power of the guitars showcases the bands close knit sound and similarity to other defining bands in the genre, but still keeps a certain unique feel to it all with the bands new found sound and style in the melodic death metal scene. Both guitarists, Zephiros and Ponce execute amazing riffage and solo work throughout the entire album, in some cases you’ll be left gobbed smacked with their amazing team work.

Long time drummer of the band, Morteüs executes amazing blast beats and technical death metal drumming with such power and velocity, it will satisfy the most pickiest of death metal fans. Yet, the power from the drums can be abit overwhelming for the album at times, as it takes over a song to much, and all you’re left with is blast beats a plenty. This can be salvaged however with the more melodic tracks such as “Ready to Leave” and “Thing I Will Never Feel”, which include an eerie yet symphonic keyboard mixture throughout. The keyboards add a great mixture to the already amazing and complex sound of the band, as it offers a great variety to the album and but doesn’t tarnish the death metal appeal to the album.

Lead singer, Mick boasts an amazing talent for using both harsh/dry vocals and quickly changing to more soulful and harmonic clean vocals which brings symphonic choruses into the mix, but without going to the extremes like a band such as Dimmu Borgir. The tone of his vocals change quite frequently throughout the entire album, so you are not left with a generic and repetitive album of cliché death metal and melodic vocals.

I have to admit, when I first listened to the album I thought it was a mixed CD, as the vocals have such great structure to each song, it sounded like each song was sung by a different vocalist. This is quite rare as most melodic death metal bands these days tend to stay in a more secluded area of the genre and don’t tend to stretch out and try something new, yet Destinity have broken those boundaries and have created something amazing.

“The Inside” boasts amazing production value with the whole album recorded at Hansen studio, by Jacob and Michael Hansen. The album is just prefect in every way possible, showcasing the bands amazing musicianship and close relationship with each other, and can be shown quite clearly in the entire album.

You’ll be hard pressed to find anything wrong with this album, as its one of the more well done and perfectly structured melodic death metal albums around today. If your a fan of Soilwork, Sentenced, In Flames or Scar Symmetry you’ll easily fit into Destinity’s amazing, yet unique sound and style. 8.5/10

Band: Destinity
Album: The Inside
Year: 2008
Genre: Melodic Death Metal/Thrash
Label: Life Force Records
Origin: France
http://www.myspace.com/destinity

Track Listing:
1. My Senseless Theory
2. Murder Within
3. Thing I Will Never Feel
4. Still Remember
5. A Thousand Falling Skies
6. Inhuman Corrosive Report <- Reviewers Choice
7. Ready To Leave
8. Enemy Process
9. Escaping Reality
10. The Inside