Album Reviews : Urn – Soul Destroyers

Finnish black/thrash band Urn have been around since 1994, and have several releases under their belt, so I was under the impression they would have been past their initial “textbook” phase and established their own sound by now. I was wrong.

This isn’t a bad album, there are some decent guitar solos and the drums are interesting in parts but it’s just nothing that interesting. Black Steel Worship has some nice guitar work going on at the start, War and Victory has a hooky little drum roll that got stuck in my head, and Soul Destroyers has a great intro with some haunting synth sounds in the background, but as whole songs they are very bland. It lacks any real feel or passion, and couples with a ton of textbook-riffs, drums and harsh vocals, it makes for a very uninteresting release.

It might not be too bad if there was a bit of variety, but each track follows pretty much the same formula; fast riffing, vocals that occasionally follow a pattern but mostly seem to be random and standard drums beats with the occasional rolls. So by the third or fourth song, you’ve heard the whole album. The average production doesn’t help. I know that the rough production is used a fair bit in black metal, and it can often sound good, but in this case it tends to blend a lot of the backing music into an indistinguishable wall of sound.

If black/thrash is your type of music, then rip this to your itunes and just stick your playlist on random. It doesn’t sound too bad when you just listen to a song here and there, but as a whole release it’s bland and uninspired. This has been done before, and better.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to some Venom. 4/10

Band: Urn
Album: Soul Destroyers
Year: 2008
Genre: Blackened thrash metal
Label: Dynamic Arts Records
Origin: Finland
http://www.myspace.com/urnmetal

Track Listing:
1. Lifeless Days
2. (Bringer Of) Pain, Agony and Death
3. Black Steel Worship
4. Strike of Qonqueror
5. In Darkness, The Fire
6. Legions United
7. War and Victory
8. Blood of the Desecrators
9. Decibel Hellstorm
10. Soul Destroyers <- reviewers choice