another review
http://www.probablysmug.com/martriden-martriden-ep/
Wait, these guys are from Montana?
Like many, this was my first thought when reading about them. Given that much metal comes from barren and desolate places, aside from North Dakota, what better state than Montana to encourage such an environment for some potentially great metal? Here we have Martriden, a young band with members from Montana and neighboring states who have converged to make one brutal beast of an EP. Following in the footsteps of the 90’s melodic death metal wave, these guys definitely have a touch of the Gothenberg virus in them. But don’t let that put you off, because it’s by no means 1990’s In Flames worship. In fact, it’s quite a bit more brutal than that, despite the interlaced melodies throughout the songs. The drumming contributes to this by packing a punch, and thanks to the production, isn’t drowned out nor are they drowning out any subtle melodies. The production might be a bit too clean for some metal heads, and while it will definitely put some off, it doesn’t hinder Martriden’s dominant strength which is their song writing.
Without trying to be obviously progressive, Martriden has pulled off some extremely great song writing. Rather than using your typical song writing pattern, each song varies between five and seven minutes long, and all have several things special about that sets them apart from the others.
“In Death We Burn” sticks out to me as the best track on the release. While the first minute of it grabs the listener with ease, it quickly calms down with a short acoustic interlude. When it picks back up, the rest of the song is one of the most thundering and terrifying sounds that will ever come out of Montana. While you might not hear any new techniques that haven’t been done before, this release still gives me hope that Martriden could be one of the more promising Death Metal Acts of 2007 to come out of America. If I don’t see them getting out of Montana and opening some shows for Arsis within a year, I’ll be quite surprised.