Review by Greg on June 25, 2024.

Can Serbia ever run out of killer thrash metal bands? While I'm too busy finding more and more of them to think of an answer – wait, maybe that should be enough to make me tend towards a 'no' – here is another addition to that still indefinite list, although off to a rather unimpressive start. Kobold is the brainchild of mastermind Elio Rigonat, who I'm expecting to be a peculiar character under many aspects, and his voice couldn't help but follow suit, I guess. Now, we're talking about a band I hold in the highest of regards in terms of originality, so it saddens me to reduce the whole stuff to a make-or-break experience with the vocals, but, well, his extremely John Connelly-esque inflection can really result insufferable in the long run, meaning it's gonna be the most divisive feature of this debut Death Parade – of all their albums really, but here he's even more unrestrained and (spoiler alert) it's the only one where there isn't a shitload of boner-worthy material to make up for it, which surely makes a huge difference, in the grand scheme of things.

Although the man is also in charge of the guitars, and it's another story altogether. More than the solos, channeling the over-the-top shredding of the late Mike Scaccia (not least due to the absence of the rhythm guitar) but lacking a great deal of variety, it's the riffs that shine, thanks to their certain off-kilter quality he always manages to convey. Even in such an early, unrefined phase, tracks such as the first three, or later highlight 'Thrill For Speed' still offer that extra oomph necessary to stand out from the pack. The immediately recognizable massive guitar crunch of Luka Matković's Citadela Studios is also an undisputed plus for a debut album, for sure... although the other side of the coin is the just as predictable prominent space awarded to the vocals.

Death Parade's biggest downside, though, isn't the vocal performance. Many of its songs are fired at extremely similar tempos and are basically indistinguishable, to the point that the middle songs are honestly tiresome to sit through after all that came before. And 54 minutes are waaay too many under these premises, although they give the album time to switch to a mostly speed-esque, Ranger-meets-early Fog of War vibe you might have been expecting from the last mentioned title above, approximately from 'Ministry Of Propaganda' onward, and the Exciter cover at the end finally makes perfect sense. Given that Kobold have become personal synonyms for interesting as fuck thrash metal, it's quite a pity. Maybe it needed a little more time in the oven, to axe some of the most similar tracks and maybe attempt something more different... more often. Yeah, because the formula does vary at some point, but so much and so abruptly that it almost sounds like another band was featured. Indeed, 'I, Icarus' is an infectious ultra-melodic number with everybody taking a step back and letting the guitar lines speak, for once, with Rigonat even, gasp, singing? Conversely, 'When the Eyes Turn Inwards' is a decidedly more blackened number. Sounds strange? It really shouldn't, since both are tropes that would be put to full use in subsequent albums, but sure, here they're no more than a pair of very good outliers, that also have the side effect of making the return to several more conventional tracks feel like a merciless, inevitable decline.

Overall, Death Parade would be a decent first album for many bands around, but you can believe me when I say it's a rather underwhelming experience, with the hindsight of the three (as of this writing) works that followed. The first half warrants a listen, and I'm seriously considering putting 'I, Icarus' in my ever-growing car playlist, but if you were to listen to a single Kobold album in your lifetime – well I wouldn't envy you but who knows – make it one of the others.

Rating: 6.4 out of 10