Band: Allegaeon
Album title: Fragments Of Form And Function
Label: Metal Blade Records
Distributor: Metal Blade Records – Rough Trade
Release date: 16/07/2010
Release: CD

When you take a look at the cover of this album you can already deduce that Allegaeon is a melodic death metal band. That is a correct deduction. When you listen to the album, you can also deduce that this a Swedish melodic death metal band. That is a false deduction ! This band hails from the United States of America and not from the country of leading melodic death metal band In Flames. This only proves that the production of the album is great and that the band members must be talented musicians. Talented musicians is the least you can say as their drummer almost won a drummer competition in a magazine and guitarist Greg Burgess is a classically trained guitar player with a degree from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

This debut album of Allegaeon (pronounced as ‘uh-lee-juhn’) is a collection of riffs and blast beats. Luckily, these riffs and blast beats aren’t used recklessly. They are used in such a way that every song stays interesting and that we don’t even need a real break in between the songs. In songs such as “The Cleansing”, “The Renewal”, “The God Particle” and “From Seed To Throne”, there is a huge mix of riffs and blast beats and these riffs and blast beats are used at the same time, which is the strongest point of this entire album. The only break we get is a pause of one minute at the end of the song “Biomech-Vals No.666” as a perfectly timed instrumental outro. You can say that this is the best song on the album, but actually, we can’t say there is a real highlight, because all the songs are equally good.