Released on: 18th August 2017
Ordeal is the mightily impressive debut album from Foredoomed. A successful mix of brazen melo-death with a heavy emphasis on melodic discourse. Tuned up with elaborate passages that will take you out of the immortal comfort zone that much of the extreme metal genre provides. Suffice to say it is a diverse album that inspires more than just your average headbanging routine. Because with the way these riffs turn over it would be easy to windmill happily throughout the entire collection.
Complete with dizzying heights this album unabashedly blends passion with articulate cadences to telegraph a powerful feeling. And in doing so suspends time in a miasma of ageless synths and gritty guitars. With such a dynamic texture this album is perpetually moist whilst the awesome guitar solos and harmonies makes it feel equally limber. Moist and limber. Ordeal is inarguably a sexy album.
Another thing about Ordeal is that taking inspiration from orchestral compositions is nothing new. Especially for Finnish bands who just seem to slay the extreme metal scene with grandiose compositions like preparing crops for a festival harvest. But doing it well is. Foredoomed do it exquisitely well and each track is lined with spectacular imagery painted with what can best be described as blood, sweat and tears.
Ordeal is a tremendous effort and an astounding first album for the Finnish quartet. Showing a deep love and an intense understanding from both inside and outside the melo-death genre. Far from the origins of death metal Ordeal are bringing some prog sense to the often maligned sound of melodic death metal. And while it is not a masterpiece it ain’t far off the mark of a Magnum Opus.
9/10
