Prior to listening to this album, Gothenburg-based act Marionette looked and sounded quite interesting on paper, with their claims of incorporating elements from the visual kei movement from Japan (where eccentric and flamboyant visuals and sound are considered the essential ingredients of the said genre) with brutal Swedish hardcore and metal.

Unfortunately, the expectations built up from the band didn’t quite match their bold claims. But then having said that, the six piece act (who comprise of ex-Mindfall/Poem vocalist Axel Widén, guitarist/backing vocalist Johan Sporre, guitarist Aron Parmerud, bassist Mikael Medin, keyboardist Linus Johansson and drummer Jimmy Olausson) have managed to craft a solid melodic death metal influenced album with their debut Spite.

The opening track, “Parasite” pretty much lays down the template on which the remaining eleven tracks are based on, which is slick, sharp, speed induced, precision based European styled melodic death metal. Widén proves himself to be a competent growler through most of the song. The injection of clean vocals, while remaining true to the standard tried and true method of all melodic death metal bands, is also done well.

From here on in, there’s little to dislike throughout the album. But there are not a real lot of songs on offer that manage to differentiate themselves from the preceding track. Those that do sound like a slight departure from the proven formula can be found when the band shake up the tempos to allow some slower passages in the form of “Release,” “Dead Boys And Girls,” “Flies” and “Burn Me” and when Johansson injects some different sounds in the keyboards within the songs “Legion” and the definite highlight of the album, “This Is The End.”

Marionette’s Spite is not an earth shattering debut, but it’s a well rounded effort that gives them a solid foundation to work from with future releases.

www.marionette.se