A Canorous Quintet

A Canorous Quintet - The Only Pure Hate
No Fashion Records, 1998
Genre: Melodic Death Metal

1. Selfdeciever (The Purest Hate)
2. Embryo of Lies
3. Red
4. The Void
5. Everbleed
6. The Complete Emptiness
7. Retaliation
8. Realm of Rain
9. The Storm
10. Land of the Lost

After “Silence of the World Beyond” I had high hopes for this band, I felt they were doing Melodic Death Metal in a way that was slightly different than their peers.  I feel like with “The Only Pure Hate” they have drifted more in line with what is typical for Melodic Death Metal, but this is still a great album in the end.  One thing I can say is that they didn’t just re-release “Silence in the World Beyond,” but it is a decent continuation of those ideas.

The first half of “The Only Pure Hate” is a much more aggressive album, I felt like “Silence of the World Beyond” had a lot more melancholic parts evenly distributed throughout the album.  However, starting with the song “The Void” the arrangements are similar to the debut album.  This was nice to have, because I feel like this is the part that makes A Canorous Quintet stand out from just about everyone else in the genre.  The way they meld the acoustic sections into the vicious metal is masterfully done and it doesn’t feel like the band is just switching from one idea to another randomly.

The vocals are fairly standard for this genre, but he does do some lower growls here and there.  For the most part it just covers the mid-range screams similar to everything else in this genre.  The tone works perfectly for their music, so this is certainly nothing to complain about.

In the end, if you are a fan of Melodic Death Metal, this is really a must hear band as far as I’m concerned.  It’s a shame this is their final full length.  But the band eventually got resurrected (sort of) under the name This Ending.  So go check them out too!

A Canorous Quintet - As tears
Chaos Records, 1994
Genre: Melodic Death Metal

1. Through Endless Illusions
2. The Joy of Sorrow
3. When Happening Dies
4. Strangeland

This is the debut mini-CD and I must say that it is very impressive.  This is one of the better Melodic Death Metal bands I have heard.  They compete with some of the best known Melodic Death bands in the earlier era around such as In Flames and At the Gates.  This album switches off between acoustic and electric guitars quite a bit.  Usually the changes are extremely sudden giving the album a rather up and down feel to the music and overall sound.  I do not really mind this aspect to the album too much, but other listeners may have a problem with it.  This is actually a pretty good recording for a debut album at this time, although it does sound fairly under produced in comparison with the more major label releases.  I think this band musically bears a lot of similarity to At the Gates, more so than In Flames, but I think in their coming albums we will see they will actually exceed At the Gates in skill and over all composition.  So if you are a fan of Melodic Death Metal do not let this band pass your eye.