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I hope no one minds, but I've listened to it a few times now, so I'm going to attempt to write a review. It's probably not going to be that great, since the kind of reviews I'm used to writing involve three lines of description, track recommendations, Seven Deadlies notes and an RIYL. However, since I'm writing this for people who actually know what the hell they're talking about when it comes to metal, I'll try my best to do it justice.
First of all, The Duskfall is my favorite band. I love their second album, Source, with every fiber of my being. It's an amazing piece of melodic death mastery. However, despite this, I had serious trepidations about this new album. First, the title - "Lifetime Supply of Guilt." It's definately in the same vein as "Stabbing the Drama" and "Soundtrack to Your Escape," the steaming piles that have been the latest offerings from the once-great Soilwork and In Flames. In addition, LSoG was produced by Daniel Bergstrand (Darkane, In Flames, Meshuggah, Soilwork), as were the last couple Soilwork and In Flames albums - basically, once they started to suck.
But, on to the album itself. I'm pleased to say that it's much better than I expected. It's nowhere near the league of Source, but it's no Soundtrack, either. It fails to capture the raw energy of Source, and it suffers the most from repetition - there are a few songs that sound like someone had an idea and liked it so much they did it again, and again. It starts off with "Trust is Overrated," one of the better songs on the album. It's similar in sound to "Destroyer" from Source, and manages to capture a bit of that same powerful energy found on that album. Thrashier than your average melodeath song, it's definately a good opener. Next comes "The Shallow End," and it starts to decline. Besides a rather baffling passage about halfway through wherein the bass is taken out, the drums and guitar all but disappear and the vocals are muted (think the opening of "Jotun" by In Flames, but softer, more barren and nonsensical) the song structure itself is different than previous Duskfall material. The riffing is simplistic, with a bit of that "chugga-chugga" so beloved by the metalcore kiddies (no breakdowns, thank goodness). "Break the Pact" is unremarkable, not terrible but not the kind of amazing that was found on Source ("Case Closed," "Striving to Have Nothing," "Guidance"). "A Stubborn Soul" is also very good, and could have gone on their first album, Frailty. "Shoot It In" comes next, and is my least favorite song on the album. More chugga-chugga, and a chorus that also puts me in mind of generic metalcore. "Going Down Screaming" vies for the title of worst song with "Shoot It In, " with drumming that makes very little sense even to my ears and Kai Jaakkola's normally standout vocals becoming...weird, I suppose, is the only term for it. At the end of the song, it sounds like he's trying to mix a midrange melodeath growl with a hardcore-style scream, and failing. The fadeout at the end of "Going Down" also lasts way too long, making me yell "Just end already!" at my speakers. "Hours are Wasted" is another pretty good song, though nearly indistinguishable in the chorus from "Shoot It In." "Sympathy Has Decreased" is another standout song on the album. It recaptures the drive and power on Source, though it moves at a slower pace. The penultimate track is appropriately named "Downright Dreadful." More of the same boring, repetitive riffing that plagues the "repeat" songs on this album, forgettable chorus. "Relive Your Fall" helps redeem the album a bit, giving it another track that sounds like it was written by the same band that gave us Source.
Given that this album is much longer than either Frailty or Source, it's not hard for me to believe that the "repeat" songs are simply filler - maybe being on a bigger label (Nuclear Blast - their previous material was released on Black Lotus) and working with a big-name producer made them spread too thin on this one - certainly, if you took away "The Shallow End," "Shoot It In," "Going Down Screaming" and "Downright Dreadful," you'd have an album that could stand proudly in their catalogue, and not something which could be a single sour note, or the precursor to their own fall.
70/100
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