Assailant

"Wicked Dream"

Label: Dockyard 1

Assailant come from … “metalmother” Sweden and claim a place and some time in our cd player. It’s a fact that I foster appreciation for the Swedish stage and a special love for the Gothenburg’s stage- call me a new wave of Swedish Death Metal- I must see from a factual position if they do have something different to introduce.

For starters, despite the fact that they come from Umea city, probably they must hang a lot around Gothenburg because their sound says so. They define their sound as a hybrid between progressive power and melodic death metal. To make it more simple imagine a gold mean between Soilwork and Mercenary. The haunted atmosphere and the progressive vocals match better with the first band, while the keyboard, the electronic details and the melodies match more with the second band. Assailant have a dramatically bonded sound with many layers, which is the point for that kind of music but this is not an easy achievement for many musicians. They have impressive introductions at their songs and this is achieved with the keyboards and the synthesizers, on which they have worked a lot. The guitaristic ideas at the riffs and at the melodies are very good and the performance of the songs is breathtaking and dynamic. On the other hand, while the alterne of the vocals works perfectly, the choruses fail. Beside this I didn’t have the feeling that the progressive outcome at the composing ideas occurs.

The cd however is good, but we can’t call it the “great success”. Last but not least: the guitarist is the younger brother of Emil Norberg ( Persuader/ Savage Circus ) and of Nils Norberg ( Nocturnal Rites/ personal reluctance of the writer). Metal music seems to be a family business here…