The Imperial Betrayer - The Harvest Review

I really love the underground deathcore scene and that's why I'm finding tons of new bands with an imense potential every day. Every ep, album or song I ever downloaded has something special, it's harder than you think to stay deathcore but to do something completly different without using other elements from other kinds of metal. But one album I randomly found on youtube cought my attention and became one of my favorite underground deathcore albums.

This wonderful release is the EP/full length album by a band called "The Imperial Betrayer" (A really nice name in my opinion) from Belo Horizonte, MG, named "The Harvest".

Wow, I saw that epic cover and thought: "It's gonna be so brutal that my face will start to melt at the first breakdown ... or it's gonna be something really generic, metalcore-deathcore with cleans ( with the motto 'hard shell /soft soul'" ).  Then I checked out the music and man, these guys managed to create an album with a sick cover that contains heavy music that perfectly fits to the cover art. You can listen to 31 minutes of straight, "in-your-face" generic deathcore. Don't misunderstand the word "generic". Generic is not a bad thing, I really enjoy releases like "Thy Art Is Murder-Hate" or "Chelsea Grin-My Damnation" that are generic as fuck but still fucking awesome! So back to the album: It is not a release full of really brutal breakdowns all the time, they do have many breakdowns but they are very well placed and they have a proper length and tempo. A fact that I really like about the album is that the band used samples some times that is a really brutal thing actually. (Remembers me of old I Declare War stuff). One of my favorite parts is the two step part in "The Harvest" and the breakdown in the same song.

The guitars are playing easy formulas, chug chug, tremolo picking and lots of palm muted down-dropped power chords. It isn't technical at all but I like it that way. The bass is really "shy" and only follows the guitars, I would enjoy some passages where it breaks loose and plays own short leads or variations. The drums are programmed and I like the way they are mixed, not too loud cymbals, a tight china, a dry snare and a good sounding ride. The blast beats are very nice on this release, if the kickdrum would be a little bit louder it would be perfect but all in all the instrumentation is really tight. The mood of the album is very scary. The album has a really creapy intro that was very confusing and scary at the same time, a interlude that I can characterize with the same adjectives and a outro track that is a piano instrumental, it delivers your soul at the end, it's full of sorrow and regret, there are 1000 ways to interpret the song. The intro and the interlude are just SFX with a mans voice telling stuff, really scary and mysterious.

The vocals are a deep growl that will make you fear, a voice full of power and anger. The singers' high growls' are also not to tin or weak, they are full of power as well. He also uses pig squeals sometimes, I really like them and hope that they will use them more on the upcoming album.

All in all, "The Harvest" by "The Imperial Betrayer" is a very good release, it's nothing completly new but the band has potential and I hope that they will find a good label for the next release! If you like brutal deathcore, check them out!

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