J-Man
I'm not sure what's in the water over in Sweden, but it seems like I'm always stumbling upon exciting extreme metal acts from this country. Feared is one of my more recent Swedish discoveries, and their devastating blend of thrashy grooves and melodic death metal heard on Furor Incarnatus is likely to impress most of its listeners. Although the album is heavy as hell throughout its entire duration, Feared does a tremendous job incorporating subtle details and melodic touches into their music, making for a listen that is both enjoyable while it lasts and memorable long after it ends. Furor Incarnatus will perhaps not be the first choice for more conservative death metal fans, but anyone with a liking towards modern extreme metal should find plenty to enjoy here.
Furor Incarnatus is not a death metal album in a traditional sense, but I still predict that fans of that genre will find plenty to love here - although Feared play a very modern sounding variant of the genre, this entire album still focuses its sights primarily on brutal and punishing compositions. Even in a track like "Satan", which features semi-clean vocals, keyboards, and a few clean guitar tones, the band offers up a backbreaking audio assault that should leave any extreme metal lover begging for more. Feared makes frequent use of groove-based riffs in the vein of Meshuggah throughout Furor Incarnatus, but they never dive into metalcore territory - the band's delicate balance between heavy thrash grooves, calculated technicality, melodic flourishes, and straight up death metal is quite impressive, and the end result is a strikingly original extreme metal observation.
To top it all off, Furor Incarnatus features some remarkable musicianship and a very detailed sound production; it's safe to say that this is a professional observation in addition to being a unique and enjoyable one. Feared is a band that most folks probably haven't heard of, but if Furor Incarnatus is indicative of anything, it shows that this band shouldn't be underground for much longer. Anybody with a soft spot for bands like Scar Symmetry, Meshuggah, and Fear Factory would be doing themselves a disservice by not checking out what Feared has to offer!