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Leading Vision is the second Gorod album, which was released in 2006. At the time of writing this is the only album from this French band that I’ve heard in full, so I really couldn’t say how it compares to their other releases, all I know is that Leading Vision leaves me with very mixed feelings.
The band plays technical death metal, and there are some prog twists within their sound as well. This is how I really like my death metal to be, but I feel that the genre needs to do three things right in order to make a cracking release. Firstly it needs good technical ideas played by skilled musicians. Secondly it needs a decent vocal performance. Last but certainly not least it needs to retain an aspect of brutality along with the technicality – after all this is still death metal we’re listening to.
Gorod’s Leading Vision hits two of these nails on the head with perfect accuracy. But with the remaining nail they missed it and smashed their thumb pretty badly. So which nail did they miss? The brutality one is the answer. From the technical point of view Leading Vision is pretty much flawless, and it’s a highly enjoyable record because of that, and vocalist Guillaume Martinot carries the album exceptional well with a great vocal performance, but they seem to have sacrificed most of the brutality I expect from death metal for that perfect technicality that they exhibit. The music is still very recognisable as death metal but the release just seems to lack any sort of intensity to it, and the absence of that is felt greatly. On one hand this album is great for, say, a progressive metal fan, but on the other I can well imagine a death metal fan feeling a bit cold about the album.
I do enjoy Leading Vision a lot all the same, but it’s as a general metal fan, not necessarily as a death metal fan. For a death metal album, I found this one an extremely easy listen, which is not something I say about many death metal releases, as most require me to give them a few listens to really get into. Those that don’t are usually masterpieces of the genre, such as Obscura’s Omnivium or Augury’s Concealed. Sadly just because I got into it faster than is normal for me, Gorod’s Leading Vision doesn’t really stand up to those tech/prog death albums as far as I’m concerned, although this is certainly a solid release in its own right, but I can’t escape the feeling that if they’d hit all three of those nails without ending up in bandages then Leading Vision actually could have been up there with the best of the best. Still, this is a solid and professional sounding album, and Gorod still deserves a praiseworthy score for this effort, especially for the gem of a closing track, Hidden Genocide. The material is consistent throughout, but this track is the true gem of the release. It’s certainly a case of saving the best for last.
In summary although I feel that ultimately Leading Vision can only be rated positively, I’d like to reiterate that it does leave me with mixed feelings, which is why I’d advise death metal fans in particular to approach this one with some caution. Not total caution you understand, but just a little bit. I enjoyed this one because I’m a big progressive metal fan; those not so into their prog may not find it completely to their taste.
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scoring 8.0/10)