Iconoclastic is the latest offering from Finland’s Medeia and their fourth full-length release following 2011’s incredible Abandon All.
The title track is one of the strongest tracks of the album and gets the release off to a noisily energetic start right from the get-go. With striking guitar licks and powerful vocals, it really is the perfect way to get the album moving, as well as giving a feel for how the rest of the release is going to pan out.
However one of the things that swiftly becomes apparent with this album is the lack of variety and each track seems to quite similar to one another. You really can’t deny that this band are incredibly talented, but some of the songs just sound so alike that it’s almost difficult to differentiate between them as they all seem to follow the same sort of pattern, especially due to the similar ‘chanted’ vocals and guitar lines with similar ideas from one song to the next.
Sleep was a nice slice of goodness though, incorporating softer female vocals into the mix which perfectly matched up to the harshness of the lead vocals – it was a nice melodic touch to it all and divided the whole track up nicely. It was great to hear them take a slightly different approach with this track and it just worked!
On the outside, Iconclastic is just your average Finnish death metal release, not really breaking away from the norm. If you dig a little deeper, you can unearth a few great gems – particularly the ones that give the keys a larger role – but collectively the album doesn’t quite hit the heights Medeia are truly capable of, which is a massive shame.
7/10
