UMUR "With the Lost Souls on Our Side" is the 12th full-length studio album by Danish death metal act Illdisposed. The album was released through Massacre Records in June 2014. Illdisposed have been playing and releasing albums since the early 90s and by now qualify to be called veterans of the Danish death metal scene. They are also one of the most prolific Danish death metal acts and they show no signs of slowing down.

The music on "With the Lost Souls on Our Side" is probably the most old school Illdisposed have sounded for years, even though it´s not really old school death metal that´s featured on the album. But gone are the keyboards/effects and most of the melodeath elements which have been a dominant part of the band´s sound for many years and preceeding albums (although the music is still fairly melodic at times). I guess that transformation already began on "Sense the Darkness (2012)",. but it´s completed here. It´s still unmistakably the sound of Illdisposed though. Groove laden mid-paced riffing and occasional faster paced parts, tempo changes, a solid rhythm section, and Bo Summers distorted and processed grows in front. This time around the vocals are layered with both the deep growling and the higher pitched hysterical voice singing at the same time.

The material is decent enough but not really that memorable and certainly not a revelation of neither Illdisposed´s sound nor the death metal genre as a whole. The latter was probably never the intention, but I could have wished that some attention had been given to the former, because as a whole "With the Lost Souls on Our Side" is an album that doesn´t really stick. It´s well played and well produced too, but the tracks just aren´t catchy enough. That doesn´t mean "With the Lost Souls on Our Side" is a bad album by any means, but I expect more from a prolific artist like Illdisposed. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

J-Man Like many other veteran Scandinavian melodic death metal bands, Denmark's flagship act Illdisposed has evolved quite a bit in its twenty-plus year history. Though Illdisposed's early records reek of raw, old school brutality, the band's newer albums have a much more polished, groove-oriented style that takes plenty of cues from modern trends in death metal and metalcore. 2014's With The Lost Souls On Our Side, their twelfth full-length studio album, is a strong outing with enough mosh-inducing grooves to satisfy most extreme metal listeners, even if it has a different audience in mind than Illdisposed's classic nineties' albums did.

If you've kept an eye on modern thrash bands like Legion of the Damned and Dew-Scented, the sound of With The Lost Souls On Our Side shouldn't come as a total surprise. While still death metal at its core, the album relies heavily on thrashy grooves with touches of melody thrown in to keep things interesting. With a crisp production and polished musicianship to top it off, this is a very 'modern' sounding album that may not appease old school death metal purists, but for listeners that take a liking to contemporary thrash riffage, With The Lost Souls On Our Side has plenty to offer. Though not many tracks stand out from the crowd, all ten are solid enough to warrant a decent amount of headbanging.

I suppose my biggest gripe with this album is just how familiar it feels from start to finish. Though it isn't derivative enough to strip it of all merits, Illdisposed doesn't do anything here that hasn't been heard before, and as such, it's hard to give this record a strong recommendation to anyone that doesn't already follow the band. Still, this is a well-played, well-produced, and generally well-written observation that fans of modern death metal certainly won't regret hearing. This isn't the must-hear 2014 death metal album that Behemoth released earlier in the year, but it's certainly not anything to scoff at either.