The year of 2011 has been a big one for metal, with highly anticipated sophomore albums from Of Mice & Men and Asking Alexandria, as well as new albums from metal veterans such as Skeleton Witch, but this album stands high above them all.

This Paris deathcore act takes a huge step in progress in their sub genre of metal. If you took Asking Alexandria’s clean vocals, Born of Osiris’s growls and screams and Winds Of Plague’s technicality and classical influence, you would have Betraying The Martyrs.

Song Highlights:

“Ad Astra”:

The classical introduction to the album, full of atmospheric synth swells and violin plucks and morphs perfectly into the hard hitting track, “Martyrs”.

“Because of You”:

The song starts out with a technical breakdown with symphonic parts smoothly playing over it. The song perfectly mixes melodic clean vocals and deep hellish growls, worthy of death metal bands such as Lamb of God or Winds of Plague.

“When Your Alone:”

The last song on the album, and the hardest-hitting as well. Instead of clean vocals, screamer Aaron Matts does the whole song, with three guest vocalists, including Kevin Traore of fellow French metal act As They Burn. The four vocalists each get their turn at the mic, before ending in sky shattering breakdown with all four vocalists screaming the words “No excuse, for the things we have done. Others, they won’t except your lies, you’re petrified!”

Overall: The album is amazing, especially since it’s their debut! The mix of technicality, symphonic sections, growls, clean vocals and breakdowns, is brilliant. I look forward to see how this band evolves in the upcoming years.

Rating: 8.4/10