They say variety is the spice of life and, if 'Feathers & Flesh' is anything to go by, Avatar must be eating napalm curry made by the Devil with their naan bread. The Swedes have gone from standard melodeathers to, er, something else entirely with their sixth full length.
Just take a quick listen to its first proper track, House Of Eternal Hunt, which starts with a ferocious Children Of Bodom dual harmony, drifts into some cheesy NWOBHM vocals and then batters the ears with a screamed, upbeat Ensiferum-style chorus. This is proper take-your-clothes-off-and-swing-them-around-your-head, party-worthy stuff. The song is Avatar trying anything and everything, a trait that's gestated since 2012's 'Black Waltz' LP. And it's all over 'Feathers & Flesh'.
Mastodon's entire career is covered in just a few minutes on Black Waters, beginning with a sludge riff and racing into a soaring-yet-gritty chorus that obviously identifies with 'Once More Round The Sun'.
For The Swarm staggers along like System Of A Down punching Sleepytime Gorilla Museum in the throat. Night Never Ending finds a gang vocal you'd expect from Against Me! left isolated as the track wraps up – if they don't play this live then I'll give you a fiver.
Tooth, Beak And Claw is basically heavy metal surf rock; Dead Kennedys spat out of Satan's sphincter at 200mph, riding a surfboard atop a fountain of brimstone. There are pinches of the avant-garde in Johannes Eckerström's vocals, much like Scandinavian contemporaries Arcturus and Vulture Industries, but there are a few Randy Blythe-isms thrown in too. This is where problems arise.
Lamb of God are amazing. We know that. Loads of bands are influenced by them, and subtly display this through their craft. We know that too. But 'Feathers & Flesh' does more than pay homage. Its growled sections and grooving riffs feel a little stale as a result, despite the endless originality rolling around in the record's first half. When The Snow Lies Red? Lamb of God. Pray The Sun Away? Lamb of God. There's even that curling of the vowels, that inflection which is undisputedly Blythe, during the second line of Raven Wine.
And that's a real shame, because Avatar are, at times, fantastic. The Eagle Has Landed is one of the most pompous, catchy singles you'll hear all year, while One More Hill's chorus utilises Eckerström's powerful pipes to conjure a re-imagined Judas Priest or Iron Maiden, channelled through a genuinely heavy band in 2016. Not a throwback, nor a pale imitation like Maiden’s ‘The Book Of Souls’, but an actual update of the formula.
'Feathers & Flesh' suffers from too many ideas being put forward and not enough of them being developed and explored properly, resulting in the band falling back on a core sound that's been done to death. There's an entire concept and story enveloping the record that's so heaving in scope it comes packaged in a 60-page, 109-verse poetry book. Avatar clearly aren't short of ideas, but with 'Feathers & Flesh' they struggle to pick the right ones.
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