UMUR
Galloping Through the Battle Ruins is the debut full-length studio album by melodic death metal act Arghoslent ( melodic not melodeath). The album was released in October 1998 through Wood Nymph Records. The origial CD pressing was limited to 1000 copies and as a curiosity some copies came with rat bones inside the CD jewel case. Galloping Through the Battle Ruins has since been re-released on both vinyl, Cassette Tape and CD by various labels.
The music on the album is pretty old school death metal with lots of melodic and memorable hooks. I remember the first time I played Arghoslent for my older brother and he was positive that they were a Swedish act. That would have been my first guess too, but they are in fact an American ditto. Lots of harmony work by the guitars means that the album is pretty accessible even though the music is actually rather brutal. Well it´s mostly the vocals that are brutal and growling but the music is also very raw. The songs contain several shift in tempo and they are not strictly vers/ chorus based, which is always a good thing IMO.
The production is a bit sub-par to the otherwise good quality music, but it´s not that much of a distraction really. In other words! It could have been much worse.
Galloping Through the Battle Ruins is a good first release by Arghoslent and while they would go on to produce better releases later on in their career this one is still recommendable to fans of the band and fans of melodic death metal. A 3 - 3.5 star rating is deserved.