THE BEREAVED -

THE BEREAVED - DARKENED SILHOUETTE - BLACK LOTUS
The Bereaved is a young five-piece from Sweden rehashing the Swedish thrash metal of At The Gates and Duskfall with some synthesizer sadly thrown in the background. The band is late to the party. The style is tiresome and done to death. The raspy vocals, tight riffing and standard drumming come with an admirable distorted bass guitar sound and good interplay of lead guitars which sits well atop the the sharp rhythms. Unfortunately, like most replica bands the second generation is not as good as the original. In the case of The Bereaved, the band apparently cannot deal with metal all the time and yields to the pressure with the existence of keyboards in the background. Devil's Deal begins with a more melodic sound but is soon back to thrashing. Like-wise Lines In Shape has some fluid soloing as well. The other songs on Darkened Silhouette, Silverspoon, Vital Organ Theft, My Dying Pride (ha ha) and others, pretty much follow the formula. The album ends with a worthless instrumental/outro.
The Bereaved won't go anywhere unless the band undergoes transplantation surgery. The band is not bad necessarily, but it is interesting to note that it used to be called Clone at one point! For now, this is a nice listen, but overall is ultimately dissatisfying and unoriginal. - Anna Tergel