Dissection - Reinkaos

Dissection's final album wasn't a particularly great way to sign off, but Mr Nödtveidt obviously had 'other plans' plaguing his mind. However, this issue of their maligned work was bought directly from the band, limited to 1,001 copies, and signed by each band member.

It was inevitable that people would be disappointed seeing as the first two albums were deemed as such classics by pretty much everybody and their neighbor (well, maybe not my neighbor, he looks like he listens to Cher), especially as the bands style has now taken a simpler approach to songwriting, and is now ultimately lacking the X factor which drew them to the band in the first place. However, this is not to say it is the worst album ever created by all means, it's just highly generic and lackluster in places unfortunately. Upon my purchase of the album, and after about the 8th spin, I can appreciate it more for what it is musically, rather what I expected and wanted it to be from a band that I worshiped as a teenager.

The opening instrumental passage is the closest Reinkaos comes to Dissection's older material, reminiscent of the opening of 'Storm of the Light's Bane' (though, glaringly not as good!), before the album sets into its mid-paced chunky guitar riffage. If you've heard the Maha Kali single, it should be a guide to what to expect pace-wise throughout the album. Even the individual songs paces do not vary wildly, which is a shame, because Dissection were great at doing fast evil riffage.

This said, there are a few good points here. There are a couple of nice evil atmospheric parts on this album (usually in the acoustic parts), which coupled with Jon's vocals really helped to invoke hope for future releases before his death, whereupon Jon would discover his edge again and really form a strong writing partnership with Set (who we also know can write amazing riffs in Aborym). Well, it obviously wasn't meant to be. About 60% of the riffs are pretty decent musically, and fairly enjoyable (even if they are played far too slowly for my liking), the other 40% are, well, just insipidly average sadly. An unfortunate end.