Peruvian Swede Ivan Castro had spent quite some years in the Heavy Metal / Hard Rock scene before deciding to create Enemy Awake, a Swedish sounding Melodic Death Metal project. As with the debut album ‘The Enemy’ he recruited a female vocalist for the job, with Rebecca Holm (vocalist of Övervåld nowadays) as the lucky one for this album.
‘Fallen World’ sounds exactly as the first sentence of this review, a Heavy Metal / Hard Rock guitarist who decided to start a Melodic Death Metal project…when you take away the crunchy Swedish sound you hear that typical Heavy / Rockin’ riff and song-structure, which is mostly mid-tempo or galloping. For instance try to listen to ‘The Vampire’ and Manowar’s ‘Warriors of the World’ consecutively, or ‘Fallen World’ and Judas Priest’s ‘Breakin’ the Law’.
There are some up-tempo moments on the album and I can’t deny it gives some diversity to it all, but for me, as a huge Old School Swedish Death Metal afficionado, it doesn’t hit the right spot as it is not pushing the right buttons for my taste. For me it lacks the aggressiveness that characterized 90s Melodic Death Metal.
I’m sure there will be a couple of you who will enjoy this one, but I’m afraid that the seasoned Swedish Death Metal fan will not be fulfilled.
