Band: Kiuas
Title: Lustdriven
Label: Spinefarm Records
Distribution: Suburban
Release date: 31/03/2010
Review: CD

Helsinki-based Kiuas returns with a new epos, filled with an unstoppable energy and power. In the vein of 2008’s The New Dark Age, Lustdriven combines melody with aggression. The basics are built around a rhythmic and catchy guitar-driven structure, yet the keyboards, which are very important in a modest way, do give the whole a symphonic, then again an atmospheric or classical touch.
Vocally, Ilja Jalkanen combines a clean voice (most of the time) with a rougher one, and the album also includes harmony chants, shouts and ‘speaking whispers’.
The pounding tracks consist of an extreme rhythm section (ultra-heavy bass lines and hammering drums), and some burning guitar solos fire it all up.
But… most of the time it is so terribly predictable. Damn, after a first listen, I was so enormously bored. No, sorry, it wasn’t afterwards; as a matter of fact, it was during…
And it lasts for fifty minutes, so…

65/100

Ivan Tibos.