Review by Tobias on March 3, 2004.

Danish rockers Raunchy bring forth some highly polished metal in their sophomore effort. "Confusion Bay" launches itself boldly with a very evenly balanced duality in vocal styles unlike most of the melodic death metal scene which tends toward the growling rather than the clean singing.

Outside of the very fluid transitions from thrashing growls to electrifying clean chorusing ala latter-day Soilwork, the most impressive aspect to me on this album has to be the never-dull arrangements. The more I listened to this album and the closer I paid attention, the more it struck me that throughout the album not once does the music drag.

Each song gives strong proof that there is no lack of guitar talent in the band, but perhaps in an effort to add to that highly polished sound strengthened by very tight musicianship, the band seems to be uninterested in providing guitar solos. Considering the deftly multi-layered guitar work, I think soloing is well deserved and I see the lack thereof as a big problem.

In the end this is a decent entry in the great book of metal. The strength of the songwriting seems to get better with each song as the album progresses. While there might be one too many lyrical references to apathy, Raunchy is no doubt on the rise.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Review by Tobias on March 3, 2004.

Danish rockers Raunchy bring forth some highly polished metal in their sophomore effort. "Confusion Bay" launches itself boldly with a very evenly balanced duality in vocal styles unlike most of the melodic death metal scene which tends toward the growling rather than the clean singing.

Outside of the very fluid transitions from thrashing growls to electrifying clean chorusing ala latter-day Soilwork, the most impressive aspect to me on this album has to be the never-dull arrangements. The more I listened to this album and the closer I paid attention, the more it struck me that throughout the album not once does the music drag.

Each song gives strong proof that there is no lack of guitar talent in the band, but perhaps in an effort to add to that highly polished sound strengthened by very tight musicianship, the band seems to be uninterested in providing guitar solos. Considering the deftly multi-layered guitar work, I think soloing is well deserved and I see the lack thereof as a big problem.

In the end this is a decent entry in the great book of metal. The strength of the songwriting seems to get better with each song as the album progresses. While there might be one too many lyrical references to apathy, Raunchy is no doubt on the rise.

Rating: 6 out of 10