Forsaken, The: Traces of the Past

CD, Century Media 2003

Track list: A Time to Die - One More Kill - Acid with Acid - Piece by Piece - Glitches Will Tell - Traces of the Past - Serpent's Tongue - God of Demise - Massive Machinery - The Empire - First Weapon of Choice - Blackened

If you're into fast and technical death metal, here's a treat for you. The Forsaken is from Sweden, as many good death metal bands tend to be. However, I'm not completely thrilled. Sure, they play fast, technically brilliant and brutal music, but something's missing. There's little that would elevate them from the unfortunate mediocrity. It's certainly good album, but very good - no. The brightest sides of the album are not by the band themselves: the album cover by Niklas Sundin is beautiful and the album-ending Metallica cover, Blackened, is just great. ***