French Sound of Memories description write up of their To Deliverance album may be a little deceiving. The document claims the band to sound like the early days of Amon Amarth, Carcass and Children of Bodom. Could this be a delicious mix of tremolo infused Viking melodies, dry death metal weave and blistering speed touched by keyboards here and there? Well, that is why they say: “trust, but check”. This is exactly what you need to do to diagnose To Deliverance independently.

Operatic overture Non Compus Mentis puts out some ominous cello and piano notes, but is not necessarily an indication of what is to come. What is to follow is some juicy slick modern melodeath, often with catchy melodies, but Amon Amarth it is not, let’s be honest. The album reminds me more of the second wave of Swedish melodic death, the bands like Dimension Zero, Miseration or Nightrage. Sound of Memories has distinctly bright, yet severely downtuned, guitar sound, and have ability to come up with riffs not out of place on recent Dark Tranquillity albums (the opening of Confined in Struggle), but then the replete use of breakdowns to bolster their extreme credentials (Momentum) and, especially, The Vulture’s Pride, turns me off, the latter song sounding like a more deliberate late years In Flames production. To mention metalcore further, Sound of Memories conflates two vocal lines, deeper manly lower booms are backed by more hysterical screams filled with angst.

There is no question the band knows how to make harmonies flow. Beyond the Maze and Pray for Blood are full of them, while From Above even brings a touch of clean vocals, also giving rise to In Flames comparison, but somehow when Sound of Memories don’t want to just be brutal and burly they appeal to my senses better. Too bad the clean dissolution of From Above is not how things end, and we need to be reminded by the title track that the Frenchmen are from what they term to be “the extreme” camp. There are also direct thrashing, straightforward uptempo tracks here (Eulogy, Pray for Blood), which I personally prefer, and in the moment of a melodic solo of Eulogy Sound of Memories are not just focused on emphasizing how brutal they can be. At the same time, they also want to be convoluted and progressive, trying to carve their own niche, but syncopated to death mid-Eastern influenced Amenaa comes off as progressive twisted metalcore.

The production here helps to be tight and muscular. The drums are unbelievably powerful, me thinking there is some artificial aid to make them sound this big. The bass is also pretty prominent, so with guitars downtuned as well, the bottom end on To Deliverance is quite monstrous. Melodeath presented on the album is often the type that people love to hate, but there certainly will be fans out there, who value slamming breakdowns as much as they appreciate a harmonized lead. Those who emphasize the word modern in their appreciation of melodeath need to find a way to sample To Deliverance. You will make your own conclusions from there.