:: Seance - Awakening Of The Gods

Seance

Despite releasing two promising albums in the early ‘90’s, Swedish death metal act Seance fell apart with the departure of guitarist Patrick Jensen in 1995. But after more than ten years of inactivity, and fifteen years since their last release (Barring the cover of Slayer’s ‘Post Mortem’ for the ‘Slatanic Slaughter’ tribute album in 1996), the reunited Seance, consisting of vocalist/bassist Johan Larsson, Witchery guitarists Tony ‘Toxine’ Kampner and Rille ‘Richard Corpse’ Rimfält and Witchery drummer Micke ‘Mique Flesh’ Pettersson, are back with their long overdue third full-length album ‘Awakening Of The Gods’. The fast paced and almost grind-like ‘Wasted’ gets the album off to a particularly brutal start, with Larsson in typically bruising form, while the guitarists provide plenty of dynamics with the slowed down solo section around the three quarter mark. The mid-paced militaristic ‘They’ tempers the aggression for more of a thrash sound and a guttural growl from Larsson, while the old school death metal approach of ‘Your Time Has Come’ and ‘Invocation’ are definite high moments on the album. The rather short instrumental piece ‘Flight Of The Wicked’ serves as a break around the middle of the album, before the band take a somewhat melodic direction with ‘Murder’, ‘Choose Your Eternity’ and ‘Forever Haunted’. Although interesting, the short acoustic instrumental piece ‘Revel In Death’ somewhat disrupts the flow of the tail end of the album. But thankfully, both ‘Prisoner 666’ and the downright evil sounding ‘Burn Me’ regain the lost momentum of the instrumental to close out the album in a fittingly punishing manner. Seance’s ‘Awakening Of The Gods’ isn’t a cutting edge death metal release, but it’s as solid as old school death metal gets, and a worthy release to stand alongside the band’s two highly acclaimed cult releases of the early ‘90’s.