Destinity – Resolve in Crimson (Lifeforce Records)
Tuesday, 26th March 2013
Mutating their sound through the years from a black metal starting point in 1996 to symphonic black metal, and now more of a melodic death/thrash style, French quintet Destinity I’m sure have been met with their share of detractors for these shifts. On album #8 Resolve in Crimson, it appears that the band focus on a lot of similar qualities that should get more mainstream appeal, but could cost them long-term with their older fans.
The riffing has a thrash-like intensity along with the necessary harmony breaks you expect from At The Gates or Soilwork on material such as “Reap My Scars” and “A Scent of Scorn.” Meanwhile drummer Morteus provides some droning keyboard parts, some of which enter on an obvious, slower death number like “Only Way” where vocalist Mick employs two different types of Swedish-inspired grunts and screams to capture the split personality effect of the track.
Destinity work best from the pure speed factor in the verses and then cutting the tempos in half for maximum audience assault. Seb V.S. and Zephiros as guitarists, slicing and dicing their contemporaries on the closing number “The Hatred.” Recording the album at Jacob Hansen’s studios, you can feel the triplets pulsate and vicious snare snap in winning cuts such as “Black Sun Rising” (the lead break is breathtaking) and stair step harmony killer “Redshift.”
Would I put Destinity at the forefront of the original melodic death/thrash movement in 2012? Not exactly, yet once again, what matters more nowadays – execution or ingenuity? I find Resolve in Crimson gets the job done for the former when you need a vicious soundtrack for your P90X workout or something to just release pent-up aggression with.
(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)
