I can honestly find the sound of “Fairytale Abuse” very appealing, it’s sort of a mix between melodic death/black and gothic metal, I know, I know that description doesn’t really say anything, well let me elaborate. The vocals can easily be compared to early melodic Swedish metal, you know what In Flames sounded like when they had Henke Forss or early Mikael Stanne with Dark Tranquillity, a death scream with the depth and rawness of black metal; the band also included some deep male vocals that are way cleaner than your traditional death metal growl but still they manage to give the songs that extra feeling of heaviness.

The guitars are melodic and they pretty much have hooks on every tune, very catchy guitar work; this Danish band really knows the meaning of applying melody to heavy riffs.

I guess the black metal influence is brought on by some atmospheric sounds place in songs like “An Odour of Osirian Bloom” where the band ends up sounding like Dimmu Borgir (just more melodic and less theatrical) or maybe something like Agathodaimon; “Misery Tree” follows that same path with some keyboard arrangements transforming what you were listening from early raw melodic death to a more elaborate melodic black metal, a change that doesn’t take you by surprise but that really redefines your expectations for the record.

“By the Vampire Still” the song begins fast, hard, the vocals are a bit more into a black metal interpretation, the death growls get a little deeper and you have the incursion of female vocals, nothing spectacular or operatic but very well fitted for the tone of the song; why I’m talking about this song? Well simply because I think this is the song that focuses all the influences and captures what could become the bands future sound, a blend of melodies that catches the listener while evolving into a complex and pleasant sound.

Every track is catchy but perhaps only “By the Vampire Still” is a memorable song, off course we can’t deny the quality of tracks like “Sindarilla” a killer opener or the very guitar oriented “In the Shadows of Stigma” (well every song is guitar oriented) a song that almost sounds like straight melodic death metal if there were no keyboard involved.

This is a good album, very catchy but not memorable, let’s hope there future releases are a bit more…memorable.