After the absolutely stunning The Arcanum, Suidakra are back with their new studio album : Emprise To Avalon. Apparently this is the band's sixth album, but the only one I heard before that one is their previous effort.

The recipe is still the same, lots of melodies and folk elements with brutal Death Metal vocals.. In overall the album is even more aggressive than their previous effort (especially the track Song Of The Graves), but without comprising on the melodies and you can still hear their typical sound during most of the songs of this new epic album. It also seems that the overall sound is also more drawn to Heavy Metal than before. The album is very epic, and that goes perfectly with the lyrics of this concept album based on King Arthur. Suidakra's music can be very complex, with excellent work on the guitars, which harmonies sends shivers down my spine more than once and I must say that this is typically the kind of albums that need time to grow, so finally the listener can hear the whole depth of such a record, cause the sound spectrum is quite full, except of course during the folk tracks. Another good point is the mixing of clean and brutal vocals, both are really nice, also I prefer a more higher kind of brutal vocals like Norther or Children Of Bodom (you can find these in Suidakra as well, but they're not used enough to my opinion). Song writing is absolutely brilliant, with the perfect mix of melodic elements with the clean vocals while crushing your brain with heavy riffing and brutal voices. Songs like Fall Of Pendragon are absolutely amazing, with incredible guitar moments, perfect melodies and killer riffs. The break especially is simply brilliant, without any doubt the best song of the album. But this album contains many killer songs and the more I listen to it the more I sense the highly epic feeling of it. There are more clean vocals than before and I find this to be an excellent idea. My only complaint is that like it's predecessor, this album contains not many songs, 6 songs, and 3 folk tracks in between that will remind you those "breaks" Rhapsody or Blind Guardian usually make too. They usually make a very good job in easing your mind for the melodic aggression that follows and precedes them :)

The production is very good and the artcover is excellent and so is the new logo of the band. Everything in this album actually adds to the concept, from the epic melodies, to the folk moments of pause or tracks. In the end this album is a bit different than The Arcanum, but like it's predecessor, this album needs the listener full's attention to completely reveals itself. The first listening session were actually difficult to digest because of the complexity of Suidakra's music.

I'm sure their new signing with Centuri Media will probably give this band a better exposure and they sure diserves it. An impressive band that confirms it once more on this release. While taking the roots of their music from very different styles (Heavy - Melodic Death and Folk) they manage to bring something new and fresh to the scene. Far from being a COB clone, Suidakra sound is very original and very well balanced. A must have for all Melodic Death Metal freaks out there. Very well done !