FEARS

"Fears" is the debut full-length studio album by Polish death metal act Atrophia Red Sun (if you don´t count the "Painfull Love...(1995)" cassette tape as their debut. The album was released through Morbid Noizz Productions in 1997. It´s worth a mention that Atrophia Red Sun was at that point the home of later Decapitated vocalist Adrian "Covan" Kowanek.

The music on the album is melodic death metal. The band feature six members including a keyboard player (who also handles samples) and therefore the music is rather keyboard heavy and at times very atmospheric. Lead guitar themes also play a big role in the music and I actually think there are quite a few influences from an act like Amorphis in the music albeit without the ethnic/folk influence. To my ears "Fears" features a more futuristic sounding atmosphere. I hear quite a few goth/doom/death influences in the music too and acts like Cemetary and Tiamat come to mind there. The vocals alternate between intelligible growling and other less raw vocal styles.

The band are well playing and the sound production is decent. It could definitely have been stronger and more powerful, but it´s only occasionally a distraction. It´s definitely the weakest link here though. If the sound production was of better quality I would probably have given a 3.5 star (70%) rating, but as it is now a 3 star (60%) rating will do.