Album Review: Krisiun’s Forged In Fury Isn’t Fully Tempered

It’s weird when a metal band is old enough to have finished graduate school, isn’t it? Such is the case with Krisiun, which brings us to Forged in Fury, the twelfth album in the band’s 25-year history and their first since 2011’s The Great Execution.

Forged In Fury starts off much as the name would suggest: furiously. “Scars Of The Hatred,” the opening track, wastes no time getting into a badass galloping riff, and “Ways Of Barbarism” has a very Dethklok-esque solo. The first four songs are crushing, brutal, and it’s pretty damn hard to listen to Forged In Fury’s opening limb without headbanging or imagining how killer the pits could be during a live set.

Unfortunately, Forged In Fury loses some steam in its mid section. The songs get repetitive, and although they’re not even close to The Acacia Strain’s Death Is The Only Mortal repetitive, these songs feel like they follow the same slow riff / speed up / repeat pattern and end up blending together. This really hurts on an album where one of the ten tracks is an instrumental less than a minute long. However, the last couple tracks on the album keep the S.S. Forged In Fury afloat, especially “Timeless Starvation,” the album’s best track, which ends things on a high note.

Other than the repetitiveness, my only gripe with Forged In Fury is the bass. The bass is overly twangy and mixed a bit too loud at times, and it makes a few otherwise excellent tracks such as “Dogma Of Submission” incredibly grating. I imagine the bass is what Sonic the Hedgehog would sound like if he bounced on springs after ripping a couple lines of cocaine. But this is a minor issue that only affects a few songs. It certainly doesn’t ruin the album, but it does warrant a mention.

The bottom line is this: Forged In Fury might not be perfect, but it offers some good ol’ Brazilian death metal. The album is heavy and raw, and other than a weak mid-section, it’s something you’ll want to mosh to. Forged In Fury drops worldwide on August 7th, and unlike anyone giving a sermon, it deserves to be listened to.

Listen to a song from Forged in Fury called “Scars of the Hatred” here. Forged in Fury comes out on August 7th via Century Media and can be pre-ordered here.