Slaves Beyond Death

Ah, the difficult third album, some people say the second record is the tricky one but I think history will point to the third full length as always separating the men from the boys.

Black Breath - Slaves Beyond Death

I bloody love all of Black Breaths previous output, heavy with a hardcore tinge and an an energy and perhaps even a tongue in cheek that seemed to separate them from the rest of the pack. The last two records have had some serious play in Screaming For Records Towers let me tell you. So that brings us on to the new record Slaves Beyond Death. The band have taken quite a dramatic change in style on this record with some grander ideas and longer more slow building songs. I can understand why they wanted to have a stab at mixing it up a bit but so far I'm not really feeling this record, it just feels like a jump too far too soon. The vocals have changed dramatically to a more generic death metal roar and some of the energy and rawness has been lost completely. There's nothing bad here, it's just not really what I wanted from Black Breath, they seem to have lost some of that individuality and kinda just sound like another Death Metal band, albeit a good one.

 I say this a lot but in fairness I've not exactly listened to this a huge amount just yet and maybe over time some of the intricacies of the record will jump out more, but at the moment I'm just kinda underwhelmed. That's not to say I wasn't banging my head in places when listening but I could do that to any metal band.

Black vinyl only on display here as I bought this from an actual store rather than buying on line. I'm not sure what colour options there were but I think I've seen a sandy brown type colour version online. Even the cover I'm not feeling as much as the previous releases which all had great covers, especially Heavy Breathing which I always think is a great record cover.