Avskydd - Avskydd

Here I am again with another review, I had never heard of the project so I figured I'd take a look. First thing I did was look at the album artwork, pretty simplistic, band name in white on a black background. Not very alluring, if I had no prior knowledge of this album or band and I was browsing in a record store, flipped through a row of CD's with this album in there, I probably wouldn't be bothered to take a further look at the album based purely on the artwork.

Then I read, "All music, vocals, and lyrics by Fredrik Croona." I am somewhat familiar with the Swedish Composer, Fredrik Croona. He can be credited for such projects as Menschdefekt, Project Rotten, Necroleptic, and more recently his baby, Cynical Existence. But now, in 2014 on the 6th of January he delivered the expressional outlet, Avskydd, with a self-titled release not backed by a label. The release was mastered by Sander Kapper--whom I am also very familiar with--Sander masters as Stahlblack Products.

"Avskydd" means "Despised" in English. I decided to translate all the song titles as well so I could have a better understanding of what is being presented. All but two of the songs have lyrics provided, so you can translate the lyrics if wanted.

01. Allt är så uppenbart = Everything is so obvious
02. De andra = The other
03. Det enda som finns är slutet = The only thing is the end
04. Ondskan inom oss = The evil within us
05. En vilja av ilska och hat = A willingness of anger and hatred
06. Det enda jag har = The only thing I have
07. Ensamheten = Loneliness
08. Avsky = Disgust
09. En värld av hat = A world of hate
10. Outro (Bortom all existence) = (Beyond all existence)

To my ears this material isn't all that different from listening to any given Cynical Existence material, maybe just a slower version of it and sung in his native language. I can listen to Menschdefekt and Project Rotten, but most of Cynical Existence is unlistenable for me due to the way his vocals are presented. Whether it's the way they're processed or the way they sound like he forces the words out, it just presses my buttons. And unfortunately, with Avskydd there is a lot of songs with the Cynical-esque aggro vocals.

I don't know why, but I can mostly only listen to the over processed vocals in Project Rotten or the vocals he contributed in Menschdefekt, but not Cynical Existence or Avskydd so much. For me it's hard to block out the vocals and listen to the rest of the music actively, no matter how good the music is--however, I do enjoy a good number of the remixes under the Cynical Existence moniker and chances are that I would enjoy an Avskydd remix in the future as well.

On Avskydd, you can find yourself enjoying songs here and there but nothing too striking/ captivating. The production is great, there are some catchy melodies--track 3 stands out the most--the lyrics are great, the vocals are a lot more variable--which is good. There are parts where you don't find him forcing the sound out, he can actually be heard singing and then here comes those aggro vocals that are very similar to Cynical Existence. It ruins it for me every time. I actually enjoy the majority of his work musically, but until he stops using his aggro vocals akin to Cynical Existence or handling the vocal duties, I won't be caught listening to/ spinning this or Cynical Existence unless they are requested. Mar 23 2014