Navigating You Through the Progressive Underground

Style: Progressive/Symphonic Death Metal, VGM (instrumental)
Review by: Sam
Country: Austria
Release date: September 9th, 2020

Instrumental metal usually bores me. The inherent limitations of only using a guitar to provide melody often results in very static, predictable compositions that turn into a shredfest more often than not. Because what else can you do? Metal riffs lose a lot of their expressive power without a vocalist giving some variety. Having aggressiveness as your only mood is just too monotonous for instrumental music. Hence the key to making instrumental metal (or ‘instrumetal’ if you will) interesting is using other genres and instruments to spice it up. Ever since The Night Watch managed to keep me hooked to an ‘instrumetal’ album for over 70 minutes with their stunning record An Embarrassment of Riches last year I’ve been a lot more open to the genre. So when I found Seth Angerer on Bandcamp with a seemingly varied (and competent!) ‘instrumetal’ album, I just had to review it. Can they keep me hooked?

Yes they can. Utrotningen (which is Swedish for ‘eradication’) is a very symphonic album that incorporates dozens of genres and different instruments into its largely symphonic death metal framework. I believe everything is synthesized (except the guitar playing), but it’s done well enough not to form a detraction. If anything, it’s all mixed really well as you can hear each element crystal clear and the volume mastering is pleasant. Tonally it sounds exactly like what you expect a bedroom VGM/instrumetal project like this to sound like, which is as much a positive (or a negative) as you dig other VGM (= video game music) metal production. I enjoyed it an any case.

But production is not the main reason I like this album. Its largest strength is in how dynamic it is and how cohesive the compositions are. It knows when to be epic, when to be dreamy, when to be fun, when to swell, and when to shrink. All the different sounds used to emphasize the different moods keep you on your toes, but he keeps it consistent by using recurring themes and motifs. I wouldn’t be able to mention all the genres this incorporates since my genre knowledge basically evaporates once we leave the wider metal sphere, but I can take a shot at describing the instruments and soundscapes used. The meat of this album is in your typical symphonic/VGM epic sounds, and while it doesn’t leave the VGM framework much, I’ve also detected use of the flute, the xylophone, a violin, and even an accordion in spots. In any case, the album has bunch of really nice surprises to elevate it from being just another VGM/instrumetal album.

Unfortunately I have to say that “just another VGM/instrumetal album” is a pretty accurate description of a lot of its core sound. The riffs especially I found very lackluster, going not much further than basic bitch Fleshgod Apocalypse style symphonic death. For all the work that went into keeping it varied, I wished Seth would have put in similar effort to make the riffs worthwhile by themselves instead of just being content with keeping them as a support tool. Make ’em meaner, more explosive, slap them in my face like you promised with the album title. Instead they feel like an afterthought. Another thing that irked me is that the more epic synths are very run of the mill on the record. Maybe it’s just my relative ambivalence to the VGM genre, but those choir-y epic sounds to me always sound more epic than that they actually make me feel epic. Because of this, the record lacks peaks that feel earned. There’s no moment on this that blew my socks off. The best moments on this album are when he throws a curve ball at you, but those ultimately don’t have the impact they could have because the core sound of this album is lacking.

Overall Utrotningen is not nearly the best thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s certainly an enjoyable album that avoids the common traps of instrumetal riff and/or shred-fest monotonicity. However in return for that increased variety, it falters in the other direction, often neglecting its metal roots, ultimately making the album a somewhat shallow experience. I do recommend this for background music though.


Recommended tracks: Erövring
Recommended for fans of: VGM, Fleshgod Apocalypse, background music
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Seth Angerer is:
– Seth Angerer (everything)


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