Nettlethrone

Dissonant Progression

Ghost Wall Records 2008

A name like Dissonant Progression is quite misleading when envisioning the music on offer from Turkey's Nettlethrone.  The album is equal parts melodic death metal and fierce brutality.  While being melodic can sometimes be viewed as commercial, I assure you that Nettlethrone possess both integrity and penchant for making compositions both tasteful and skillful.  Aesthetics of A Dead Art hints at the melody to come later in the album but it starts off as a more mournful version of early Grave material and includes a metalcore breakdown with passionate vocals near the song's middle.  I think this illustrates well both Nettlethrone's talent and diversity in songwriting.  Some In Flames/Dark Tranquillity references take root on Preaching the Crisis Discipline.  And those roots take full blossom on In Five Seconds We Shall Fall.  Inertia is an acoustic instrumental and while sweet and delicate it also sets the stage for the large amount of acoustic guitars that will be woven into the second half of the album. (Within These Walls and Nine Hundred Days)  And speaking of Nine Hundred Days, that firestorm of guitar harmonies and sorrowful riffing has risen as a standout track for me.  Album closer, Prayers Go Unheard is a somber doom instrumental that would make Solitude Aeternus proud.  The production goes well with Nettlethrone's style and enhances the meaty nature of their riffing.  Nettlethrone successfully combines the Swedish death metal styles of Stockholm and Gothenburg and then adds their own personality into the potent mixture adding a tone of melancholy.  This is not unlike what Gorement did on their album but Nettlethrone is substantially more melodic.  Dissonant Progression is perhaps the best metal album to come out of Turkey since Pentagram's (Mezarkabul) debut.