Sovereign Descent is the third full-length studio album from Landmine Marathon, but probably will be the first time a good majority of people will hear of this band. The past two releases were issued through the smaller label Level Plane Records, before the band inked a deal with their current home, Prosthetic Records. This move shouldn't come as a shock to those who know both the band and label, since Prosthetic recently lost their main female fronted band, Light This City, due to it's splitting up.
That's right, Landmine Marathon is a female fronted Metal act, and no, that's not what really hurts the album. While the vocals are definately of a higher pitch then the heavy music being played, the music on Soverign Descent itself is just not the most astounding. The best way to look at this band would be to take the aforementioned Light This City, but add a Thrash element to it for a little more originality. While this isn't a bad idea, some of the tracks on here are heavy but lack a real bite to them right from the start. "Exist" starts the album off rocky with some rather generic music, and it seems to continue on until "Cruel Policy" kicks in which has some heavy and faster material that blends well with some simplistic Death Metal riffs, as well as some often outstanding and well suiting guitar solos that, in the case of "Exist", can often enhance the music and even set a tone of ambience to the music. Aside that, you also have the closing track "Rise With the Tide" that has some more complex material to grab your attention.
There's nothing really major being offered here musically, but at least it's well done. The guitars on here verge between Thrash hooks and often simple yet heavy Death Metal guitar chords. Pretty much everything on here is a solid track with some intense music, but not every track will come off as great. While some of the bland tracks that comprise the start of the album are still intense enough for a good number of listens, you have "Steadfast Hate" which, after a while, really gets to be a little tedious, especially around two and a half minutes into the song where the music just starts going slow and seems like it was done to fill in time and extend the track.
To put it simply, Soverign Descent is an album that is full of solid Metal, but it just doesn't quite hook you the way it should. Chances are good it's probably just the rather overly clean recording quality mixed with the music clashing against the higher pitched screaming vocals. Either way, the music that Landmine Marathon has put on here still comes at you pretty hard, and will often have you headbanging or pounding the horns into the air. Just be sure to sample it first, as you will probably grow tired of this one after a few listens in.
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