Elysium

Elysium’s Feedback is Polish melodic death metal done Swedish-style. The band’s bio compares them to At the Gates and Dark Tranquillity and that’s not too far off the mark. Feedback is fast and it’s heavy, full of head-banging air guitar action — a solid effort from beginning to end. Unfortunately, as good as that sounds at first, after repeated listens the album still leaves too little in the way of a distinctive imprint and I’d be hard-pressed to identify the band out of context without a hint. All the important elements are there — good musicianship, strong arrangements, catchy melodic licks — but since it’s been done many times before, Elysium still need just a little something extra to set them apart (and the unusual industrial track stuck at the record’s end, while interesting, isn’t it).