KORODED - To Have And To Unhold

11 songs
41:20 minutes
***** ****
Silverdust

Bandpage

Koroded from Aachen, Germany, are one of the few metal bands that may surprise these days with a surprisingly diverse sound and songwriting. As a producer for their second CD To Have And To Unhold which again was released on Silverdust Records, they chose Hatesphere singer Jacob Bredahl. Compared to the debut which was released a bit more than a year ago, the sound is harder, rawer, darker, more aggressive and more emotional than ever before.

The opener Zero Minus Zero is a direct thrash attack similar to Sepultura. But Koroded also know to be much more melodic, with Scaretrade being a mixture of melodic Deftones combined with brutal but complex VoiVod parts. Unhold is very suitable for nu metal fans while Embers and God Of Nothingness will please every Fear Factory freak who likes the clash of sweet melodies und ultra brutal screams. The most melodic track is Epigone which I could imagine on a GWAR album. Quite unusual from the rest of the album, but this song has its charm too. This is followed by a rather short instrumental before you can listen to In Love With Memories, the album's darkest piece. At the end, the CD becomes much more brutal which you can hear on With Courage Of Dispair (seems to be a spelling error), The Good Old Bad Times and the closing People Of The Abyss. But all these songs show strange contrasts when the aggressive parts get interrupted by surprisingly well arranged melodies.

It's very hard to classify Koroded into a certain musical style. So I will not try and simply call it metal that should appeal to hard rock and hardcore fans alike. I haven't been familiar with their past works, but To Have And To Unhold has chances to be among the best metal albums of 2006.