THE TREACHERY OF SENSES

"The Treachery of Senses" is the debut full-length studio album by Finnish, Turku based progressive metal act Oddland. The album was released through Century Media Records in April 2012. Oddland was formed in 2003 and released three demos, which preceed "The Treachery of Senses". The band won the "Suomi Metal Star" competition in 2011, which led to the deal with Century Media Records.

Oddland is rightfully labelled progressive metal, but they aren´t your typical Dream Theater clone progressive metal act. Lead vocalist/guitarist Sakari Ojanen isn´t a high pitched vocalist, but predominantly sings in mid-range. He is quite the skilled vocalist and he has a relatively unique sounding voice. The music is pretty heavy at times and the guitar riffs and rhythms can be relatively aggressive. But ultimately it´s dynamic music, and there are as many softer and not so loud sections as there are louder heavy ones featured on the album. It´s not ultra complex progressive metal, but it´s cleverly written and quite sophisticated. It´s music which requires a few listens to sink in, but given enough spins, "The Treachery of Senses" is quite the intriguing release.

The sound production is powerful, clear, and detailed (Dan Swanö is credited for mixing the album) and the musicianship is on a high level on all posts, so all in all "The Treachery of Senses" is good quality progressive metal album with a lead vocalist providing the album with something a bit more unique than what many of their contemporaries put out. To my ears it´s not a perfect album as the band lose me a bit sometimes in the vocal melody department. It´s all nice and melodic, but it´s not always the melodies stick. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)