On disc: Stonelake

 
 Marching On Timeless Tales
 
- Lars Bjørn -
 
 


 
 Monolith
 
- Claudia Ehrhardt -
 
 

Monolith

(Massacre Records - 2013)



 
 

 

I heard about the Swedish band Stonelake, but never really checked them out. Now they present Monolith and it was time to listen to Stonelake. Monolith is their sixth full-length album.



The opener Fanatical Love reminds me a bit of Masterplan... They present powerful melodic metal with a dash of prog. Singer Peter Grundström has a powerful voice, but personally I prefer a darker timbre, so I like the passages where he doesn't hit the high notes - but that's a matter of taste! He shows variety and the addition of growl-ish vocals adds another element to their musical melting pot. You get an idea about their mixture when you listen to You Light The Way. With With Someone Like You they offer a thrashy tune with a dash of US metal and melodic death. You get a lot different sounds, some songs are dark, others more progressive. And they close the album with an instrumental called Desolation.



The quintet offers a lot variety, but somehow I miss their own style... In my opinion they have to make up their mind which way they want to go or work on creating their own sound out of the sound elements... A decent album, but I miss the red fathom sound-wise.



 
 










Claudia Ehrhardt


  
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Marching On Timeless Tales

(Massacre Records - 2011)



 
 

 

It starts fine enough with the first strokes of the new album Marching On Timeless Tales. Songs as Red Canyon, Liar and Snake Child are good heavy songs with lots of potential, great guitar riffs, melodic to the bone. Also softer songs as Fool With No Denial and Lay Down The War finds a place on this album, and finally there is the showstopper Enter The Temple that is a good aggressive metal song of the old metal school. But the rest of the material is very much behind when it comes to quality, as though they were suddenly out of songs and just had to put 4 completely misplaced extra tunes into an album so that it could 10 songs all together. What a shame to discredit their own name like this. The general sound is fine, there are hints of 80's metal and Bon Jovi could very well be among the bands who inspired Stonelake for the music to this album, but just like Bon Jovi has faded as the years has gone by, so have Stonelake also gone downwards within this very album.

 
 










Lars Bjørn


  
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