From the country of Nokia, cutting down forests, insane cold, power metal, a silly language and one-toothed ice-hockey players, comes Total Devastation. As their name would suggest, they bringeth death and destruction rather than tales about warriors, battles and swords. After four demos, and 4 years of existence they signed a record deal, and now, ‘Reclusion’, Total Devastation’s second studio album is out. The former record, ‘Roadmap Of Pain’ received mixed reviews, but seemed to have a consensus that there was potential. Has that potential then now been fulfilled?

The first four songs of ‘Reclusion’ are haunting, venomous acts of pretty melodical death metal slaughter where good riffs are accompanied, at least once per song by brilliant ones and smart, diverse musical touches here and there. Add to that, the steel throat with barbed hooks of singer Jaakko Heinonen (who doesn’t come up with the lyrics, oddly enough) and the fact that it sounds like there’s a constant thunder in the background and you have yourself a nice start to the album. Then in comes ‘Full Circle’, number five, a bombastic song that goes in all directions, all of which are dead ends. The first two minutes of song five are truly dreadful. The last 53 seconds kind of redeem the song, but it isn’t enough.
Luckily they quickly re-ignite the spark of the first four songs, with the masterful ‘Converted Illusion’, a slow, spherical song, with lots of background keyboard noises. The chorus of the song is (nearly) illustrious and is repeated lots of times, which only makes the song better. During ‘Ground Zero’ you really see that Total Devastation have a knack for creating fabulous, catchy, dragging, yet intense choruses. Because of that, every song has a redeeming value. Also, they don’t limit themselves solely to the death metal genre, but instead at times add parts that would fit in an Isis or Cult Of Luna song.

Really good.
I have to tell you about ‘Well Of The Dead’ (number 9) separately. The intro is slow with a clean guitar loop, then in come the drums, the atmospheric sounds, distortion, and then the unfriendly vocals. A great riff is next, followed up by incredible spherical sounds of keyboard, guitars, and slashing vocals. That apocalyptic segment floats into the intro riff and sounds again, after which there’s a bridge that is marvelous; a classical, very subtle, clean guitar solo that leads to vocal and instrumental slaughter. Luckily the slaughter doesn’t take too long and quickly the aforementioned spherical part comes back, which now takes twice as long leading to the outro. And, ladies and gentleman, the outro is something very special. The preceding apocalypse is followed by beautiful, riveting piano play, which ends the song in the most perfect fashion thinkable. You’d almost buy the CD just for that song.

‘Reclusion’ is a very good album. Sure there are a couple of songs where they don’t exactly hit jackpot in every part, but as said earlier, each song has at least one display of brilliance. Be it a chorus, or just a bridge or segment in between. Because of that you can listen to this album lots of times and not be bored with it. Another factor in that quality is the diversity. It is definitely death metal, but there is various post rock-like touches and classical influences here and there, keeping things interesting as well. People who like death metal ala The Crown should like this album, but people who like death metal ala The Crown and music like Isis, Neurosis or Cult Of Luna, should appreciate this here second offering of Total Devastation even more.