UMUR
"Descent of Yuggoth" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Megascavenger. The album was released through Selfmadegod Records in December 2012. Megascavenger is a Rogga Johansson project where he handles guitars, bass, and some vocals. The drums are handled by Brynjar Helgetun. "Descent of Yuggoth" features 9 tracks. 4 of the tracks feature guest vocal performances by prolific vocalists like Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Bloodbath, Nightingale, Demiurg...among others) and Marc Grewe (Morgoth) and 3 tracks feature guest lead guitar performances by prolific names like Eric Daniels (Asphyx, Grand Supreme Blood Court) and Patrick Mameli (Pestilence).
The music on the album is pretty standard death metal rooted in the old school Swedish death metal tradition. It´s slightly more varied than your standard release in the genre, featuring some melodic leanings, but other than that you pretty much know what to expect. The musicianship is solid, the growling vocals brutal, and the material is relatively well written. The latter could have been a bit more interesting with more memorable riffs, but overall "Descent of Yuggoth" is a pretty great release while it plays. On the other hand it´s not exactly an album which stays in your mind for very long after it has stopped playing. For that there arent´s enough catchy riffs featured on the album and the vocal parts on the album don´t feature enough hooks. It´s simply solid but seldom excellent.
On the plus side "Descent of Yuggoth" features a professional and relatively well sounding production, which suits the music well, and overall the album is a decent first effort from Megascavenger. It just suffers from the same issues as a lot of other Rogga Johansson projects do. He pushes so many releases out every year under different monickers, but while the musicianship and the productions are usually on a relatively high level, very few of them rise above standard quality when it comes to the actual songwriting, and the same issue applies to "Descent of Yuggoth". Still a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is deserved.