After releasing a strong death metal/thrash debut with Fornever Laid To Rest, SEANCE disbanded after the sub-par Saltrubbed Eyes album. These old school Swedish thrashers feature members of WITCHERY, and have since reunited to release Awakening of the Gods. While this may seem exciting at first, the end result is a disappointing “reunion” album. Comeback albums are usually disappointing since most bands have a very strong early discography, and the “reunion” albums are quite unsatisfactory, as SUFFOCATION’s Souls To Deny , ANGELCORPSE’s Of Lucifer and Lightning, and DISSECTION’s Reinkaos immediately come to mind. Bands like EMPEROR and AT THE GATES knew better and chose not to record another album and taint their legacies.
Awakening of the Gods starts off with “Wasted”, which sounds like an unused WITCHERY song, and the vocals have way too much effects to the point where it becomes real annoying and real boring - real fast. The first seconds of “They” starts off with a more aggressive push but soon thereafter quickly fades into mediocrity. “Your Time Has Come” breathes some life into this album, and if the entire album was like this track, it would be decent. “Flight of the Wicked” is an instrumental track reminiscent of KRISIUN’s “Diableros”, except it ends up sounding more like a PRIMUS outtake. “Forever Haunted” is the heaviest and best track by far on Awakening of the Gods, but does little to save this album. A far better attempt at an acoustic interlude is offered with “Revel in Death”, and finally segues into the last two unoriginal tracks.
Although there is plenty of talent with SEANCE, the songwriting falls very short, and the result is a watered down WITCHERY album. The days of the brutal Fornever Laid To Rest disc are over, and Awakening of the Gods ends up as a cliched and uninspired release. After this effort, not many people will not miss the band if they decide to hang it up and retire once again. Perhaps former riff-master Jensen, who did not participate on this album, knew better to stick with his current band, THE HAUNTED. (Pulverised Records)
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