Album Reviews : Orpheus – So It Begins…

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the Australian death metal scene is blooming at the moment. Over the last 12 – 16 months we have seen a major influx of amazing band’s, more so in Melbourne’s local scene.

This tradition continues with the arrival of Orpheus. Reading over the band’s bio on their Myspace page it seems these guys have only been around since the later part of 2008.

From a general perspective many would see this and assume the band are still wet behind the ears with the reasonably young look of the band. Looks can be deceiving though as these guys clearly sound more solid in their delivery than most established death metal band’s around in the scene today.

What sets Orpheus apart from everyone else is the band’s fundamental sound. It wages close to something you would get if you crossed Dark Tranquility and Children Of Bodom, yet not nearly as pretentious. The album is shrouded in a haze of eletronic keyboards which adds both great depth and character to the more melodic numbers. Nothing to over stimulating or cheesy, but it’s clearly keyboardist Sasha Bragnaca’s wet dream.

Vocalist Chris Themelco seems to adapt to the music quite easily. His all round tone doesn’t change to much throughout the entire album, but there are moments when he does offer different levels of intensity. Guitar work from Chris Themelco and Joao Goncalves fit perfectly to the albums scheme. Their work intertwines with one another which offers a great selection of solos from the contemporary to the more melodic.

Musically the band sound top notch. The opening track ‘The Hypocrisy’ seems to resemble a sound close to Arch Enemy with it’s elevating introduction reminiscent of “Enemy Within”. It sounds good, really good. ‘Common Enemy’ changes the pace alittle with an influence of Children Of Bodom. The heavy use of keyboards distinguishes it from the other tracks on the album while the use of drums and guitars keep a constant heavy influence.

Every song on the album seems to offer something new for the listener. There is an abundance of influence on this album, so no matter if you like straight forward death metal or your one of those picky melodic death types, I’m sure you’ll easily adapt to this very diverse yet short lived album as it only clocks in at around 20 minutes. 7/10

For fans of: Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquility, Children of Bodom

Band: Orpheus
Album: So It Begins…
Year: 2009
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Origin: Melbourne, Australia
myspace.com/orpheusmetaloz