Originally written by Erik Thomas.
Synopsis:
An acceptable but still indecisive take on melodic death metal.
Review:
Despite deeper, gruffer vocals and a slightly more brutal and at times a techy, stop start take on the genre, Sweden’s Canopy are plying a style of metal that simply retreads what hundreds of their country mates have already done.
Serene Catharsis, the band’s first full-length, is far from a bad album, but it’s also one of those annoyingly generic, yet competent albums that us just ‘there’. While listening to the solid musicianship, songwriting and many solos, all dressed up in a thicker than usual sound, I’m enjoying the album. But when it’s over, I can’t recall a single note or riff and there’s no burning desire to hit play again. Not a sign of a great album.
Even with a few attempts to changes things up, such as the almost doom metal gait for “Firmament Pt 1” and “The Bleeding Earth”, the experimental “Firmament Pt.2” and title track, the more rock based “Concentric” (which sounds about awkward with the deeper vocals) and a slightly more angular approach to the general riffage (“Last Point of Reference”), none of it, despite its robust production, really stands out. Even when just delivering run of the mill, enjoyable, solo heavy melo-death like opener “And Oceans”, “Not To Be of This World” or “Subtle”, it’s not helped by the fact the songs are generally pretty long.
I just sense Canopy is trying to ‘find’ their sound and simply started out Stockholm styled death metal on their Will and Perception EP then progressed slightly up to melo-death. At any moment you feel the album could dive into brutal death metal or even a Meshuggah-ish styled tech band. I’m sure they would be OK at either, but hardly stellar. Much like this album.
