Taketh - Freakshow
Fear Dark Productions

file under death metal / grindcore

Richard G.: Taketh from Sweden (with an authentic early 90s Gothenburg approach to music) kind of leaves me with mixed feelings. The stuttering organ, providing the intro and outro pains my ears. My God, what a cheesy and simply annoying tune was picked for this. On the other hand, I very much appreciate the hand-drawn artwork and the neat booklet which seems to be printed on recycled paper. Until now we have one positive and one negative point, so there is balance, the most difficult thing, however, is the music.

The entire album breathes a certain antique At The Gates atmosphere, thanks to the untidy production, a grunt with screamy elements and the emphasis that has been put on riffing in stead of endless melodic leads (though there are enough of those, don’t worry). Funnily enough, there is only one song (‘Consequence’) that would justify the allegation of Taketh being an At The Gates-rip-off. So is Taketh original, playing that old school Gothenburg death metal, I hear you ask. Unfortunately, the answer has to be no. everything that Taketh does sounds familiar and cannot be labelled original. In cases like these there are two options: one, you consider the release obsolete and you rather stick to your old records; two, you appreciate the effort that has been put into this and see it as a great addition to the scene and to your record collection. I tend towards the first option, but there will be enough of you that will go for the second, so go check out this ‘Freakshow’ for yourself, it could be interesting.

Rating: 60/100 (details)

http://www.taketh.tk