UMUR
"Galloping Through the Battle Ruins" is the debut full-length studio album by melodic US death metal act Arghoslent (melodic not melodeath). The album was released through Wood Nymph Records in October 1998. The origial CD pressing was limited to 1000 copies and as a curiosity some copies came with rat bones inside the CD jewel case. "Galloping Through the Battle Ruins" has since been re-released on both vinyl, Cassette Tape and CD through various labels.
The music on the album is pretty old school sounding death metal with lots of melodic and memorable hooks. I remember the first time I played Arghoslent for my older brother and he was positive that they were a Swedish act. That would have been my first guess too, but they are in fact an American act. Lots of harmony work by the guitars means that the album is pretty accessible even though the music is actually rather brutal. Mostly as a result of the vocals being growling and brutal but the music and the delivery of the music are also pretty raw. The tracks feature several shift in pace and they are not strictly vers/chorus based, which make them a bit more challenging to listen to than other artists using the more formulaic vers/chorus songwriting approach.
The sound production is a bit sub-par to the otherwise good quality music, but it´s not that much of a distraction really. In other words! It could have been much worse, and the raw sound do suit the equally raw music. "Galloping Through the Battle Ruins" is a decent first release by Arghoslent and while they would go on to produce better releases later on in their career this one is still recommendable to fans of the band and fans of melodic death metal. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.