Metal Underground.com

Much like introducing innovation to stained glass window-making, crafting a progressive death metal record is no easy feat. You have the competing worlds of an art steeped in the revered conventional and an art defined by its opposition to convention both competing over the same sound space. What's more is that both have the work of their revered predecessors constantly hovering over them, putting on the pressure. Feared has risen to the challenge of a third record in spite of this with "Furor Incarnatus."

Starting off in an Opeth-like manner, with acoustic plucking and a huge tom roll on the drums, "Live In You" starts things off rather quickly. Within the first minute, vocalist Mario Ramos introduces two dark lyrical themes death metalheads will be very familiar with -- fictional first-person psychotic narratives and exploitation. "I love you to death, and I do really mean it. You're useless to me in your current form." "Psycho Logic" pushes things further, almost like a Saw movie. Ramos's high-clarity, multi-layered death growls and brutal yells combine over lyrics in first-person that verbally berate a captive person for what the calculating killer-protagonist sees as provoking his rage.

Guitarist Ola Englund (of Six Feet Under) drops soul-crushing riffs as if it were nothing, recalling Nevermore and Cannibal Corpse at times and Opeth at other moments when he opens up to chords. When soloing, he flies off the rails in terms of technicality, but remains calculating, with hints of Mattias Eklundh and Per Nilsson in his use of techniques and tone. Another point of note is the bass guitar sound, also performed by Englund, which contributes a gigantic and audible heaviness to the groove in songs such as "Breathing Failure," "Neverlasting," and "Warbound."

The addition of drummer Kevin Talley (of Chimaira/Dying Fetus/Misery Index) elevates the Feared sound to new heights, incorporating his signature build-ups, fills, and footwork. Blast beats, elaborate cymbal fills, and a very flattering production pepper the drum work. The end result, when combined as a whole, is an album of non-stop headbanging that challenges both the death metal and progressive genres to work harder from here forward to get on their level.

The album closes with fittingly with "End," rising in one last ode to the dark beauty of the other songs, as if it were the musical theme behind the action captured in the cover artwork. "Furor Incarnatus" is a record to be respected if not loved, and will surely mark Feared's entrance into the public consciousness of heavy metal.