惊叫基督 / Screaming Savior - 宙海 / Infinity (2012) - Nothing new but quite diverse and entertaining - 79% (27/07/12)

Screaming Savior are one of the most famous melodic black metal bands from China. Throughout the last years, more and more bands of this genre arose from the underground thanks to many club shows in the big Chinese cities and now these bands even got their record deals and start to spread their music all round the world thanks to the internet. This kind of music might not be too impressive and innovating for someone who has bands such as Absu, Cradle Of Filth or Dimmu Borgir around but we talk about a band from a country where it was and still is somewhat difficult to get access to this kind of music and therefor, Screaming Savior really do a pioneer work that should not be underestimated.

On the other side, this music might only be a gem for a fan of modern melodic black metal with a lot of epic symphonic influences and a couple of small Chinese folk passages. The Chinese lyrics give the whole thing an exotic touch but apart of that this is the kind of release that could come from any other corner of the world and should definitely be accessible for the genre fans. In my opinion, the symphonic elements are even a little bit too present and the final result sounds somewhat overloaded. At least, the band rarely uses useless blast beat passages that many Western bands employ and that I find quite annoying after a while.

As highlights, I would first mention the sacral and epic opener "宿星 / Star of Fatality" that kicks the record off in a quite good way and makes you want more. "永战之海 / Ocean of Asura" was a good single choice at is not only a very varied track but has also the most catchy melodies from all songs. This track is definitely the highlight of the record and has an epic pirate atmosphere. The amazing album closer "极宇 / Across the Boundary of Cosmos" rather touches a space topic and develops an epic and majestic atmosphere by touching something that is not yet overused in the genre. The band should go further in this kind of direction next time.

There are other good tracks to mention. "祈冥 / Pray to the Chthonic" is a short and very slow song with female choirs that sounds different from all the other songs without sounding out of place. If the band had more ideas like this one and would take the risks to employ more experiments of this kind, their next album could be a genre highlight. I must also mention the following "圣颂：往征者 / Ode to the Expedition" which is a song that I like and that many will probably dislike. Let me explain you why. The song is dominated by epic keyboard sounds that sound like a mixture of Alestorm, Turisas and Europe. This is not very original but next to the amazing "永战之海 / Ocean of Asura", this track has the best single potential and should easily please to a larger audience. There is a lot of kitsch in this track but its catchy as hell. In fact, the whole record should please to fans of power and symphonic metal as the black metal elements are not too harsh to disturb fans of these genres while traditional black metal fans might quickly skip this release.

In the end, the band doesn't reinvent the genre and takes maybe a little bit too many influences from many famous Western melodic and symphonic black metal bands. Screaming Savior though know how to write epic tracks with catchy melodies and should definitely get more attention as they might please to a quite large audience except of the true black metal maniacs. Acoustic guitar breaks, haunting piano melodies or folk influenced violin passages guarantee for a good amount of diversity so that this record never gets boring. On the other side, the band should by now find its own identity and maybe concentrate on the fact that they are Chinese by working on the few but impressive Asian folk influences, some good female vocal passages and by keeping and increasing the amount of epic tales which can be found in their lyrics.