Review by Adam M on April 10, 2013.

This is a classic sounding Heavy Metal album in the Mercyful Fate style. There are operatic vocals present with this band that actually do a good job dealing with the King Diamond-like registers. This is actually my second exposure to the band and it’s another solid appearance after already hearing the great "The World. The Flesh. The Devil".

There are a number of great old school riff patterns to be found here, right from the excellent opening number 'In The Darkness'. The music never slows past a nice mid-pace which also manages to keep the energy registers flowing. There are some devilish imagery traits to be found in the lyrics, but also even in only the guitar tone itself. This element of being likened to evil deities is done better here than what a band like Ghost does, in my opinion. The riffs keep coming with more and more levels of goodness to them. The entire album is atmospheric in a chilling way, which helps maintain the mood the band is aiming at. The band still loses a bit of steam compared to the classic Mercyful Fate material because the songs here aren’t quite as memorable as those of "Melissa" or "Don’t Break The Oath". Regardless, there is a lot of music to enjoy here and enough variety in the chrous’ and verse lines to keep you coming back for more. In Solitude had a winner with their self-titled album, but it also recommended to check up on the sequel release, which is very good too.

There aren’t many bands that can play the classic stuff well these days and this is certainly one of them. Very enjoyable and listenable stuff is to be found on the self-titled album.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8.5
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 7.5
Originality: 7.5
Overall: 8

Rating: 8.1 out of 10

Review by Maciek on May 6, 2019.

I've recently noticed a significant influx of bands implementing metalcore and deathcore elements in their music. And it really is a nice addition, sort of refreshing breeze, especially when added to quite brutal branches of metal and I'm speaking really brutal, pig-squealing-brutal metal. I like that it creates a mix of melodic metal and almost grind core. 

And if there is any new subgenre around we can be sure that United Kingdom will provide their own version of it sooner or later. And in this case, it's Ingested from Manchester. Their version of brutal death metal mixed with deathcore most of all has really good sounding guitars. This is probably the first thing most worth mentioning - production. Guitars are very low tuned and distorted, but at the same time their sound is very selective. I'm sure that having guitarist from Cryptopsy helping you producing it helps creating album with wall of guitars. 

But apart from brutal elements you can surely hear some calmer passages, during which musicians show that they also know how to compose pleasant melodies. The vocals range from shrieks through screams to low growls, obviously with appropriate effects to make every sound deep and more spacious. The band is definitely taking inspiration from the best in each genre, each track has something that reminds of some other band, "The Empyrean Creed" for example has some sounds that remind me of Abhorrent Decimation. The drum work is really top class, you can hear plenty of blast-beats, bass drums are also very good in keeping the pace of each track interesting, switching between furious blasts and more head-banging tempos. 

The basic construction of this EP is that first track is just regular track, presenting the whole variety of tempos that can be found on this release. The grind-core-ish slams co-exist within this track with deathcore rhythms in the style of Hatebreed for example. Then second track with peaceful intro, transforming into Dark-Funeral-paced wall of drums and guitars. I think that I could also compare it to latest Numenorean album, "Adore" and some riffs also remind me of Aversion's Crown's "Xenocide". Same theme from track 2 carries on in track 3, but in a sort of acoustic version. Then on some versions last track "The Empyrean Creed", the one that reminded me of Abhorrent Decimation. And if you have 5-track version, the last track, "Erotic Depravity" closes the EP with another presentation of skills in playing extremely heavy and extremely fast metal, with a little hint of Cannibal Corpse school of metal. 

This is a material presenting good variety of elements from the most extreme subgenres of metal, there are echoes of death metal school similar to Katalepsy, some parts are similar to Dyscarnate and all the bands I mentioned above. And everything delivered in a package with interesting melody lines, frequent tempo changes and most of all high technical skills. Good position and I can't wait to hear more, hopefully on some full-length album. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Adam M on April 10, 2013.

This is a classic sounding Heavy Metal album in the Mercyful Fate style. There are operatic vocals present with this band that actually do a good job dealing with the King Diamond-like registers. This is actually my second exposure to the band and it’s another solid appearance after already hearing the great "The World. The Flesh. The Devil".

There are a number of great old school riff patterns to be found here, right from the excellent opening number 'In The Darkness'. The music never slows past a nice mid-pace which also manages to keep the energy registers flowing. There are some devilish imagery traits to be found in the lyrics, but also even in only the guitar tone itself. This element of being likened to evil deities is done better here than what a band like Ghost does, in my opinion. The riffs keep coming with more and more levels of goodness to them. The entire album is atmospheric in a chilling way, which helps maintain the mood the band is aiming at. The band still loses a bit of steam compared to the classic Mercyful Fate material because the songs here aren’t quite as memorable as those of "Melissa" or "Don’t Break The Oath". Regardless, there is a lot of music to enjoy here and enough variety in the chrous’ and verse lines to keep you coming back for more. In Solitude had a winner with their self-titled album, but it also recommended to check up on the sequel release, which is very good too.

There aren’t many bands that can play the classic stuff well these days and this is certainly one of them. Very enjoyable and listenable stuff is to be found on the self-titled album.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8.5
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 7.5
Originality: 7.5
Overall: 8

Rating: 8.1 out of 10

Review by Adam M on April 10, 2013.

This is a classic sounding Heavy Metal album in the Mercyful Fate style. There are operatic vocals present with this band that actually do a good job dealing with the King Diamond-like registers. This is actually my second exposure to the band and it’s another solid appearance after already hearing the great "The World. The Flesh. The Devil".

There are a number of great old school riff patterns to be found here, right from the excellent opening number 'In The Darkness'. The music never slows past a nice mid-pace which also manages to keep the energy registers flowing. There are some devilish imagery traits to be found in the lyrics, but also even in only the guitar tone itself. This element of being likened to evil deities is done better here than what a band like Ghost does, in my opinion. The riffs keep coming with more and more levels of goodness to them. The entire album is atmospheric in a chilling way, which helps maintain the mood the band is aiming at. The band still loses a bit of steam compared to the classic Mercyful Fate material because the songs here aren’t quite as memorable as those of "Melissa" or "Don’t Break The Oath". Regardless, there is a lot of music to enjoy here and enough variety in the chrous’ and verse lines to keep you coming back for more. In Solitude had a winner with their self-titled album, but it also recommended to check up on the sequel release, which is very good too.

There aren’t many bands that can play the classic stuff well these days and this is certainly one of them. Very enjoyable and listenable stuff is to be found on the self-titled album.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 8.5
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 7.5
Originality: 7.5
Overall: 8

Rating: 8.1 out of 10

Review by Fran on October 14, 2020.

I’m not a big fan of Chaos AD but I think the groove elements they tried to incorporate were still heavy somehow and even if it showed a clear intention to leave the classic thrash metal period of the band behind, it’s a decent transition to the modern sound that would eventually keep the band updated with the taste of the constantly changing music business’ market. Roots on the other hand, added lots of groove with the latino influenced percussion style and exotic drums but the final result is disgusting. The ethnic elements didn’t mixed well with the inherently rough and tinny edge of extreme metal and eventually the band moved to a safer but still boring, more industrial and nü oriented proposal for the next releases. Almost 25 years later they released Quadra, and it feels like a revindication of those ethnic elements as the album is incredibly solid and their best output in all this time. Apart from the ethnic percussive elements there are also orchestral arrangements, female vocals and choirs.

What appears to be a new height regarding maturity in composition also enjoys the benefits from a world class production. The orchestrations are virtual instruments as you can check on the credits but you couldn’t tell just by listening, some were arranged by Franceso Ferrini, the pianist from Fleshgod Apocalypse, and others done by Renato Zanuto, keyboardist for Andreas Kisser solo project; very good mix… you can trace the latin influence back to the Roman Empire in this record - it’s way more than just samba metal- and the heavy and obscure parts include exquisite riffing. The drums sound acoustic and to be fair, Eloy Casagrande is a hell of a percussionist and songwriter. The use of exotic drums and the cymbals is extremely refined, and his style in general gives so much more than the tempo keeping role of a drummer in a band, it also adds a tribal atmosphere to decorate the groovy riffs and in some of the most epic parts he sounds almost medieval. The bassist Paulo Jr. just fills with simple bass lines the space between the rhythm guitars and the drums, nothing special either.

The guitars are lead instruments in the riff driven sections of the record, in which different styles of guitar playing are combined. Some fast parts sound like modern Overkill, but don’t ressemble classic thrash or Sepultura at all; they still kick ass though. Andreas Kisser’s trademark guitar lead sections with repetition of obscure and technical guitar licks are obviously also present, adding a haunting touch to the record. Soloing is exquisite too, technical in the large sections and pragmatic when just a floyd rose high pitched scream is needed to destroy everything in sight. Mid paced sections are super heavy, I’d say that some riffs are on the edge of thrash and death metal. Some sections include classical guitars too, and when the orchestral instruments take the spotlight the rhythms are also interesting on the low end.

The album is also varied in terms of composition; there are some progressive parts with ultra weird jazzy drum patterns and outer space sounding progressive arpeggiated scales (Voivod influence perhaps). The second half of the album is more experimental, the first one is heavier but the whole spin is interesting. Vocals by Derrick Green consist of powerful screams like any metalcore vocalist, technical or tuned clean singing is done by the choirs or the female guest vocalist, adding more textures to the already theme varied album. I’d say the second part of the album is even more touching than the first, that also kicks ass. It’s a very pleasant surprise for a fan of 1987-1991 Sepultura to enjoy another album released under this moniker, but any instrumentalist of any genre will surely enjoy this.

Rating: 8.6 out of 10