Style: Prog/Power/Melodeath (mostly harsh)
Review by: Evan
Country: Bulgaria
Release date: November 13, 2020
Sweeter Than Your Love is Rosebourg’s debut LP, which is a mix of songs from their prior EP Godhead and new material. As you might expect, the album feels like a conglomeration of separate pieces rather than a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, these individual pieces are nowhere near strong enough, and are in many cases too similar, to compensate. Rosebourg themselves are something like what you’d get if you slapped harsh vocals and some other melodic death elements on top of 80s metal music somewhere in between Iron Maiden and Queensrÿche. While such a mix does not inherently have to be jarring, it certainly is here.
The album starts off on a relatively strong note with “Eradicate the Liars” and “Tonight We Fly,” even if the latter slightly outstays its welcome. These two tracks are energetic, and feature solid riffs boosted by pinch harmonic abuse. Unfortunately, the album does not manage to keep up this energy and makes many questionable decisions going forward. Many of the following tracks are fairly mid-tempo, and the great guitar work is replaced by keyboards. There are extended sections that include nothing but piano and growling, which do not mesh well.
The most glaring fault of this album is that the music sounds like it was written for clean vocals, which would have worked to keep the keyboard sections interesting, and fit the guitar tone and style far better. What the album ends up with is a discordant intersection that ends up not melodic enough to capture that 80s sound and yet not heavy enough to sound like good melodeath. What this album almost reminds me of is Six Feet Under’s Iron Maiden covers, which, as the reader may be aware, is not the most flattering comparison; it does, however, help to demonstrate why this style does not befit harsh vocals particularly well.
The lyrics are also far less than impressive. I cannot understand most of them, but what I did hear did not inspire me with great confidence. “Absÿnthe” probably embodies all of the worst aspects of this album, between it’s fairly lethargic pacing, questionable lyrical content, and jarring mix of styles. “Fuck your ex only good for the sex” the vocalist growls out, backed by only keyboards, elevating the album to an impressive level of cheese, even more so than the 80s music it is drawing heavily from.
Overall, the decent ideas, partial originality of the style, and solid guitar work do not save Sweeter Than Your Love. Unless you really want power-prog or classic heavy metal with harsh vocals you can safely pass this one over.
Recommended tracks: “Eradicate the Liars”
Recommended for fans of: Queensrÿche, Iron Maiden, Dark Tranqulity
Final verdict: 2.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Rosebourg is:
– Vasil Vasilev (vocals)
– Julian Iliev (guitars)
– Nikolay Filipov (drums)
– Svetoslav Jalkov (bass)
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