Benevolent Have Produced A Slab of Diverse Music, Beating All Senses Into Heavy Metal Oblivion

Kuwait's up and coming veterans of modern death metal, Benevolent, have managed to create a fresh wrap of modern brutality on their latest effort. Back in November the band released their debut EP "Divided" to overwhelmingly positive reception. The EP has already been featured on a number of popular blogs, such as: Metalsucks, and Hook in Mouth.

I've been personally a supporter of Benevolent since their early days of being an instrumental band. And they have certainly come a long way since releasing the mellow instrumental "Solace."

The album opens with the crushing! "Clairvoyant Transmission," a song that will impress any modern melodic death metal fan.

Hadi has certainly crafted amazingly technical, yet very accessible and catchy riffs all around the EP. His blues inspired leads, will not cease to amaze the listener and will only keep pushing forth till Fadi takes over the song with words of monstrosity. Fadi's vocals keep improving, and if he pushes harder, he will eventually deliver a monstrous sound for future Benevolent releases.

The Tyrant marks almost 10 minutes, and would certainly satisfy progressive death metal fans; the Mikael Akerfeldt troopers will love this track! The riff leading up to the song's main solo is beyond a haunting sensation. It gives an evil spine wrenching rush, that would make you want to devour an entire herd. Simply, bone chilling!

Haunting Shores was our first taste of Divided (technically The Tyrant is, but the song got a face-lift since it's first release as a single back in 09). The song shows off Benevolent's amazing vocal range, shared between Hadi and Fadi. Where Hadi handles the clean vocals on the chorus, which gives the song a melodic metalcore vibe. While the song's main verse carries out the polyrhythmic magic of Djent godfathers Meshuggah. With a neoclassically driven solo; Benevolent have produced a slab of diverse music, beating all senses into heavy metal oblivion.

The Quantum Paradox clocks over 10 minutes, and starts off with an acoustic passage, that gives way to anvil pounding drums; all adding up to create an intense opening for Fadi to tangle in lyrics of parallel worlds. Hadi executes some solid grooves midway through the song. That would definitely have Fredrik Thordendal nodding in approval.

In conclusion: Benevolent's debut EP "Divided" is a modern melodic death metal neck breaker, and by far one of the best releases this year. Along with Depth's Memonto Mori and Voice of The Soul's Eyes of Deceit; Kuwait's metal scene is stronger than ever, proving it's one of the heaviest contenders in the region for "the next big thing" coming out of the middle east.

My only issue would be that I can clearly hear the drum machine kick in, on Clairvoyant Transmission. But that's not something to complain about. The band managed to be as diverse as an internationally renowned act could be on a full length album.

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[Ed note: Haunting Shores was featured on our digital compilation album "Metality - The Compilation" celebrating the blog's 1000th post. Available here for streaming and download.]