Album Review

Chthonic – Mirror of Retribution

• 21st Jan 2010

I don’t know if Acid Metal is a properly defined sub-genre of metal – but having listened to this album it should be; Either that or the music has been played at the wrong speed.

Seriously though, Chthonic embody a diverse range of metal from classic rock metal from the 80’s to more modern doom metal sounding bands – and they manage this with rather pleasing appeal.

Of course with this type of music it isn’t the easiest to work out what is being said without reading the lyrics booklet – So a lot of the initial impact relies heavily on the sound alone. Chthonic seem to have done a grand job capturing very well what many others have accomplished before them – but they have gone a couple of steps further by fusing the sweet melodic sound of the orient string work to make something over all much more beautiful that you’d expect from the genre.

The opening half of the album is easily when it is at its heaviest – but towards the end the band take their foot off the peddle and let the album coast on more of a rhythmic beat. They are perhaps one of the finer surprises for the beginning of this year and metal fans have a lot to get exited about.