Review by Adam M on July 18, 2014.

This album is a very nice surprise. An album that blends heartwarming shoe-gaze music nicely with brutal death metal is somewhat of a rarity and Fallujah pulls this off extremely well.

Imagine having Meshuggah, Behemoth or Decapitated performing with a nice background of Alcest and you'll have a decent idea of what to expect, but the sum of the parts is actually more interesting than that. Some killer drum playing and tech-metal oriented riffs are complemented throughout by a wonderfully spacey background that is always compelling. Never does the music feel over-ambitious or too sparse. The Flesh Prevails' combination of the punishing and ethereal portions is always done tastefully to complement the music in the best possible manner. Riffing is similar perhaps to what the band Textures is capable of, but the overall mix with the gentle atmospherics makes things even more interesting overall.

Balance is something that is nicely achieved here and makes for a thrilling album at pretty much every moment. See the excellent The Night Reveals for an example of the excellent drumming combined with an array of intricacies into a certain album highlight. All of the songs have something different to offer, however. If there is a flaw here, the hard core-style vocals suit the music, but are certainly the least worthy aspect of the disc overall. Otherwise, the almost air-tight music is hard to criticize.

There is that little bit of extra thought and creativity that most heavy metal fans should be able to dig into. Fans of death metal and progressive metal in particular should look into this as soon as possible.

Rating: 9 out of 10