1. Arts Of Lunacy
2. Circle Of Fear
3. Forever Lost
4. Infected War
5. Addicted
6. Dead Point Of View
7. Blackend
8. Reign Of Hate
9. The Abyss

Stefan Persson  -Vocals, Guitar

Niklas Pettersson - Guitar

Johan Adreasson  - Bass

Daniel Landin  - Drums

distributed in Switzerland by Irascible Distribution

review by Boris "Azrael" Witta ___               

It seems that the bands which come from Sweden are absolutely uncountable. And most of these bands aren’t just bands, no, they are good bands. Another good band from Sweden, Halmstad exactly, is Scenteria. “Art Of Aggression” is their first album after three demos. The music of Scenteria is a mixture between Death and Thrash Metal, and there are also lots of melodic moments which remind sometimes to old In Flames, when they used to play Melodic Death Metal. Other influences could be The Haunted, The Crown (R.I.P.) and mostly Dark Tranquillity. 

It’s very interesting, I never heard a CD from a Swedish Death or Thrash Metal-band which had a bad sound. Neither here. The double-guitars dominate the sound, and they are supported by pounding, hard drums (listen to these double basses!) and a shouter, whose voice is 100% Thrash Metal and as good as never changing its style, only for the fantastic, melodic and desperate chorus in “Addicted”. 

Well, as I said, Dark Tranquillity could be an influence, and at my opinion, they are a very big influence for Scenteria, most of all in the way the twin guitars perform their parts, one six-string is hard riffing and the other appears with beautiful, melancholic and dark melodies. But in contrary to bands like Dark Tranquillity or In Flames, there are as good as no  keyboards on “Art Of Aggression”, just in a very few cases in the background to underline the atmosphere. Most of the time, the songs are fast and brutal, there aren’t many moments to recover. But there are also some great Midtempo-Banger-songs, a good example for this is “Forever Lost” with aggressive and pushing riffs and drums. If you don’t bang here, you must be dead or at least deaf!

I think a trademark of Scenteria are the stop-and-go-riffs which appear in many songs and which are responsible that almost every song is kind of exciting. I can assure that I didn’t find a minute on “Art Of Aggression” which was boring!

So for me, the highlights are the opener “Arts Of Lunacy”, “Circle Of Fear” (not a HIM-cover!) and, as I said before, the absolutely best track on “Art Of Aggression”, “Addicted”, with the best riffs and the best chorus on the album.

The problem of Scenteria could be that they aren’t very original, they play typical Death/ Thrash Metal, they play it very good, but as I said at the beginning, there are lots of bands from Sweden which play this sound. But I think Scenteria will get their chance and if they use it, they can become a big band. But it’s gonna be a different way. But back to the music: Every Death and Thrash Metal-fan should listen to “Art Of Aggression” because it’s great, tight music, not too original, but very good. And this should be rewarded.

Rating: 8.2/10  

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