By: Anders

Posted: Nov 22, 2006

The Swedish death metal band Canopy is now ready with their debut full length album, after having released 2 decent demos. If you became hooked on the demos and thought they were some of the best death metal you had heard from Sweden, since Edge Of Sanity were in their mighty period, this new album will blow you away, as the progression from the demos, both composition-wise and production-wise are enormous.

Canopy is delivering heavy and atmospheric death metal, often mid paced and crushing. The great guitar work is driving the music ahead and is a thing that is very enjoyable. Jonatan Hedlin, the main songwriter has made some really good compositions, there is a good balance between the utterly heavy parts, the melodic frenzies and the few up-tempo parts on the album. There are some godly and amazing melodies scattered around on the album, really impressive guitar work, both when talking about the melodies and the main riffs, I guess it's Hedlin who does most of the leads and melodies, and if so, he'll soon be known as one of the new guitarists from Sweden to keep an eye out for.

The rest of the band is doing good as well, so no need to ignore them, the second guitar player Erik Björkman is handling the guitar very well too. The bass, delivered by Daniel Ahlm, is all over the place and has gotten quite some room to play on in the production. The production is actually quite good and fitting for the music. Might a bit too compressed in the middle, which makes the sound picture complex, when too many things are happening at once. Though the sound is mostly well weighed and justifies the music. Once in a while I find the drums, especially the bass drum to be a bit dry, especially compared to the crunch the other instruments have, though I have more or less become used to it, and it actually has its charm, with a quite natural drum sound. The drumming is also well-delivered, the man behind the drums is Peter Lindqvist and he does good, I am especially impressed by the performance in 'Subtle', which has become one of my favourites on the album, a great track moving from blast beats into an atmospheric jazzy middle piece, where session drummer Vic Bristol is delivering some very good percussion, before all hell again breaks lose with Lindqvist, a well written song, with amazing musical performances.

The vocal assault from Fredrik Huldtgren is also great and fitting, it seems like he have gotten some more power behind his guttural growl and that really suits it. It fits the music really well, all the way through the album and moves nicely along with the shifting atmospheres, nice work. The play he gets going in 'Concentretic' with Subcyde vocalist Antonio Da Silva is also really good, the 2 vocals fits each other very well, the evil guttural growl from Fredrik and the fierce and aggressive scream from Antonio works really well together, perhaps Canopy should steal Antonio and make him a permanent member of the band.

If you miss the days of heavy and melodic Swedish metal with the emphasis on dark and haunting atmospheres, without any modern or soft inputs, though without sounding outdated or arcane in any way, Canopy is your band. A band taking on the heritage from Edge Of Sanity among others, can very easily bruise themselves badly, though Canopy has fine-tuned their style and can call their way of doing death metal their own now. They have progressed very well since they started out with "During Day One" and I think it only is a matter of time, before they will become recognized among death metal fans, as the heirs to the throne left empty in the mid-nineties. This album might not catch you the first time you give it a spin, though give it some time and let it develop, it is a real grower, mark my words!

Rating: 8½/10

Canopy website

Review of "Will And Perception"

Canopy interview 2005

Kindly supplied by Canopy

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