The Project Hate MCMXCIX Sweden

"The Project Hate MCMXCIX is not a new band; they've been around for a long time and are obviously very experienced. Still, this album is my first experience with the band, and, if the saying "first impressions last" holds any truth, then this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I guess that the music on this album is a mix of melodic death metal and industrial metal, which means a combination of upbeat thrashy and melodeath-style sections (even the guitar has the typical Gothemburg-inspired heavy sound) and techno- (the Prodigy-kind [excuse me for not being well-versed in the terminology]), electronica- and industrial-based sections. In addition there is plenty of groovy, heavy and oldschool riffage accompanied by atmospheric keyboards, guitar melodies and solos, distorted bass-lines, and male growling and female clear singing. The drumming is kind of interesting if you focus one it, as Tobben Gustafsson seems mildy Portnoy-inspired, meaning that he operates with a lot of little, but effective, details.

Jörgen Sandström's growls and screams are pretty standard, but not weak, and I think that he's good at what he does. Her Silly stage name aside, Ruby Roque is a phenomenal rock singer who has a powerful voice and can really belt it out, but she's also capable of doing very complex vocal melodies along the lines of John Arch and Anneke van Giesberg (Roque and Giesberg actually have similar voice qualities).

The songs are all quite long, complex in structure and, dare I say, progressive. They never become boring, yet the band somehow manages to maintain a stylistic cohesion.

This album is recommended to all fans of modern heavy metal music.

(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"