Album Details

• Artist: Fall Of Serenity
• Album: The Crossfire
• Label: Lifeforce
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: solitaryman on 2008-10-12

Media

Germany's Fall of Serenity should be seen as one of the stronger members of Lifeforce Record's arsenal, and also one of the more seasoned with somewhere around a decade of experience, including multiple demos, lps and a split with Heaven Shall Burn that sort of launched the band into people's attention spans. The Crossfire is their 3rd offering for Lifeforce, and it is regretfully where I come in to the story of Fall of Serenity. I say regretfully because the album has been a nice surprise from what I'm used to hearing out of Lifeforce acts.

The guys play a melodically sound blend of Gothenburg-death, hardcore and thrash metal. It's a sound that can be so extreme as to reach black metal-like tempos, or so melodic that it pulls out all the stops for a moment of glorious old-school metal fist-pumping. The former full-speed-ahead approach shows itself well on opener "Immortal Kingdom", which immediatly sets a pace and highlights in particular the guitar theatrics of duo Eddy Langner and Ferdinand Rewicki. Not only are the riffs truly memorable, but the solos go beyond this into a territory I like to call "perfect fits". When one such solo rises from the ashes of the ignited "Recreation", you should come under a sort of "holy crap" state of blissful rage. The song that really stood out from the pack, and I mean really really stood out and made me engage the rest of the album with more excitement, is "A Whore Called Freedom". It starts off familiar to tracks before it, but quickly amps itself into a whirling dervish of black metal buzzsaw-riffing, snaking leads and a highly bouncy rhythm section. For an outro the band totally shifts gears, pushing into an anthemic military march of sorts. Dry, snapping snare combined with a simply effective riff will catch you totally off guard in the best of ways. The rest of the album never takes as many chances, but "Funeral Eclipse", "Blindfolded" and "Blood Portrait" are worth it. "Blood Portrait" in particular features some of the hottest guitar work I've heard on a metal release this year, frankly.

Fans of extreme yet melodic and somewhat complex metal should do themselves a big favor and buy The Crossfire. You just can't go wrong with this kind of album, one that doesn't exactly change your perceptions but heightens your metal awareness all the same. A very rewarding disc for yours truly. 

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