Diablo has achieved considerable success with their latest two albums in Finland and I would like to think that they have been spreading their fan base with the new material all around the world. The bands core has been around since the mid-90s as the Diablo Brothers. In the late 90s the moniker changed to plain Diablo. Renaissance, their second album, was released in 2002 and a mighty slab of metal it is indeed.

The bands musical line of mixing the old school thrash and death influences with modern grooves and down-tuned instruments was seriously gelling together. Crafty lead melodies are sprinkled all over the album to bring colour to the punishing riffs and balls-of-steel-production. Especially air guitaring parts to me are the intros to the fast and catchy punishment of C22 and the Maidenesque harmonies on A Fear. Mid-tempo beatdowns are provided by sledgehammers like Hollow Point and Icon Of Flesh (gotta love that fist-throwing chorus!). Heikki Malmberg is a regular wizard on the drums by providing steady double-bass flurries hand-in-hand with some off beat-rhythmics and fills to keep it interesting and very technical. Rainer Nygårds gruff voice is one of my favourites in the whole Finnish scene and can hold it on a global scale as well. The guys voice embodies pissed off – seriously pissed.

Intomesee is one of my favourite tracks off the album but it might not be for everyone. A creepy intro gives way to pulverizing grooves and guest vocals by two of some of Finlands most respected rappers, Paleface and Leijonamieli. Yes, you read correctly, rappers. Intomesee mixes rhyming in with the aggressive shouting and let me tell you I dig it like crazy! The best rap-metal fusion this side of Rage Against The Machine. Intomesee alone wipes the floor with any of the zilch Limb Bizkit or Linkin Park ever did. It is also not necessary to fear that the guesting lyrics would be about bling or ho’s. They are just as hate-filled as the rest of the record. Diablo hasn't tried a collaboration like this since on their records and I would personally like to see if they could top this.

Many fans of the band I know consider Renaissance to be Diablo’s best album yet and I almost agree. To me it falls only a tad short of the brilliance displayed by Eternium. For any fan of the band it is a must have and it can very well get new people into the band as well. I don’t know how easily it can be purchased outside of Finland, but it is definitely worth searching for if you want to hear a prime example of the old and new schools of metal boiled into one destructive package.