In Staid Grace - Revelations (2009)

This Pennsylvania band are supposed to play "Progressive black metal". That's not even close to an accurate description. What it sounds like to me is melodic Swedish doom/death metal, of the variety that was popular in the mid-90's. The vocals are more akin to death metal than black metal, and while there are some elements of black metal in the guitars, they more often than not have the tone and speed of Swedish bands like Miscreant and Katatonia. That said, this is pretty decent for that style, but not really exceptional. The production is clear at least, but doesn't really add a lot of power to the music. The playing is usually pretty decent, but there are some notable places where it sounds cheap and unprofessional, such as the reticent arpeggios at the end of "In Staid Grace" and the horrible solo guitar intro to "Lifestream". The band also has trouble putting together a consistent effort. My favorite part of the album is the intro to "Feast on the Weak", which features twin acoustic guitars overlayed with a Meshuggah-like rhythm. The song continues in their usual melodic death metal sound, but about halfway through, they switch to a more drab sound and add some very flat clean vocals, and end with a minute long passage of almost ambient music before the guitars kick back in and they overlay a horrible guitar solo on top. That said, there are some nice ideas here and they do show some potential, but I think they could use a re-focusing on what it is that they do well.

Their MySpace page has five songs from this album, including the aforementioned "Feast on the Weak". "Soulscythe" is also a typical sound for them.