Band: Descending
Title: New Death Celebrity
Label: Massacre Records
Distribution: Suburban
Release date: October 28th 2011
Review: CD

Greek outfit Descending return with their second full length on Massacre, after 2008’s New Death Celebrity, recorded only one year after the band’s formation. Personally I liked some of the ideas, yet the predictability and neo-poppy catchiness were absolute turn-offs. Especially the rather popular ‘melodic Swedish-oriented Thrash’-scene was of influence and since it seems to be ‘standard’ for the popularisation (playing / performing the Swedish way) of (soft to extreme) Metal, my nauseas wasn’t that surprisingly unexpected.
The second one too dwells within these very same regions. The recording session took place at Fredman Studios with Fredrik Nordström and Henrik Udd, co-produced and mixed (again) by R.D. Liapakis. Swedish-influenced, I mentioned? It says it all, doesn’t it?...
New Death Celebrity (duration: three quarters of an hour), however, is less uninspired than the debut, even though every detail does sound like it comes from ice-cold and stormy Scandinavian shores instead of sunny Mediterranean beaches. The main difference between both recordings is the increased intensity this time. The focus is not the creation of a modern-sounding and, at the same time, timeless Thrash epic (because it didn’t work out completely, unfortunately), yet it is the opening of heavy portals to extremer and both better-structured and apocalyptic dimensions. …another fine verbal contrast… This time there are more changes in structure and speed, more hooks and breaks, and the inspirations seem to come from the western lands of the North-Atlantic (Canada and US indeed) too. The band adds elements from Hardcore, Blast, Groove and Bay Area-Thrash, and much more than before, the tempo explodes into pyroclastic eruption of sonic madness.
Original? No. refreshing? Maybe. Intense? For the better part, and most of the time these parts are the better ones. Some parts flirt too much with the infantile hypes within the Nu-Thrash, Metalcore and Melo-Metal scenes; and guess what: I [self-censorship required] very much! Yet again: some of the heavier parts are extremely tasty – and since undersigned is hungry all the time…

82/100

Ivan Tibos.