Fallen Utopia – Ruin

Written by on 26-11-2023 at 21:25.

The band name Fallen Utopia gives me modern death(core) metal vibes with those typical breakdowns. And if the website contains hardly any information but refers to the Facebook page, I was certain that I was dealing with a modern variant of the deathliest of genres. However, nothing could be further from the truth: these Austrians play unadulterated death metal that may sound modern but is heavily rooted in the nineties.

What My Soul Recoils, My Tongue Shall Tell packs a punch and blows the fillings out of your mouth. A nicely full yet grainy guitar sound and a deep grunt – that contains quite a bit of swing in the vocal lines – ensure that as a listener you are immediately at the edge of your seat. Comparisons with Bloodbath are obvious, but if you open an album with such a high quality song then this is allowed. Especially when things get even more intense in Artificial Life Creation and the guitars are played somewhat more brutally.

The trivial Interlude could just as easily have been left out or placed a little later on Ruin to catch my breath. Now it distracts, just a little too early, from the excellent music and flow of the album. Fortunately, excellent songs follow in the form of The Curse Of Akkad and My Name Is Legion, For We Are Many. What a bunch of songs these are! These really are the standouts of the album, partly because the sound of Ruin is completely 2023 but still has that old school death metal vibe.

Daniel Haslauer’s voice comes close to Mike Åkerfeldt’s and then you know that Fallen Utopia is not going to excel in originality. Anyone looking for that will come home empty handed after listening to Ruin. If, however, you are looking for a band that knows how to combine powerful and melodic riffs with a lot of groove, also in the vocal area, then Fallen Utopia will be a great band to discover.

Score:

85/100

Label:

Cursed Records, 2023

Tracklisting:

  1. What My Soul Recoils, My Tongue Shall Tell
  2. Artificial Life Creation
  3. Regicide
  4. Interlude
  5. The Work Of Giants
  6. The Curse Of Akkad
  7. Entering Utopia
  8. My Name Is Legion, For We Are Many
  9. Meister Frantz, Executioner Of Nuremberg
  10. The Drought

Line-up:

  • Daniel Haslauer – Vocals
  • Benjamin Knes – Guitars
  • Lukas Wald – Guitars
  • Maximilian Wald – Bass
  • Maximilian Ehrlich – Drums

Links: