HEARSE — The Last Ordeal (review)

HEARSE — The Last Ordeal album cover Album · 2005 · Melodic Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"The Last Ordeal" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Hearse. The album was released through Karmageddon Media in August 2005. Hearse was pretty active in their early years and had already released the "Cambodia" EP in January 2005. The band comprises former Arch Enemy/Furbowl vocalist Johan Liiva and his former Furbowl bandmate Max Thornell (bass, guitars, and drums). Guitarist Mattias Ljung completes the three-piece lineup.

The music on the album continues the melodic death´n´roll style that the band already initiated on the debut album. In that regard not much has changed. It´s still a sound that combines the melodic death metal elements and the death´n´roll elements from frontman Johan Liiva´s two previous acts, Arc Enemy and Furbowl. It´s infectiously melodic yet still raw and relatively aggressive when it needs to be. "The Last Ordeal" is slightly more rock´n´roll influenced than the preceeding releases by the band though. The musicianship is as always on a high level. Johan Liiva´s semi-growling vocals are distinct sounding and intelligible, the guitar leads and harmonies are incredibly melodic and memorable. There´s generally a charming organic quality to the playing that works well with the compositions. The tracks are mostly vers/chorus based, but the band always ensures that the tracks feature a suprise or two, to keep them interesting. A great solo, female choirs, an acoustic part and so forth...

The sound prodction is raw and organic sounding. Besides the memorable songwriting, the raw nature of the sound production and the convincing delivery are some of the greatest assets of Hearse´s music. In general and of course also on "The Last Ordeal". Too often melodic death metal sounds tame because of polished sound productions and generic compositions, but fortunately Hearse carry the melodic death metal torch high and proud. Upon conclusion "The Last Ordeal" is a slightly less interesting release compared to it´s predecessors though, but still it´s a great release deserving a 3.5 star (70%) rating.
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