As much as I love music from Sweden, Heavy Metal is a genre I feel they aren't all that good at. I mean, I don't mind if they include a bit of it with others genres they are good at, i.e. Melodic Rock, which some bands, such as ECLIPSE, do and they pull it off well, but if a Swedish album is focused on just the Heavy Metal genre alone, the results aren't going to be all that good, which I have unfortunately heard a couple of times, so will today be any different? I have my doubts, but nevertheless, off we go.

The album I'm going to be concentrating on today is the debut album from Swedish Heavy Metallers, SKULL PARADE, entitled "Sound of Corruption". Formed in 2009, this trio of musicians from Göteborg, released their first EP in 2012 and spent a good couple of years performing and recording their debut album, which was released last year and shall be the focus of today's review.

As I mentioned at the start of this review, Sweden and Heavy Metal are two things which I feel should not really mix minus the exception I talked about. The reason why I say this is because often the end result sounds like a half-arsed job with production that sounds okay but not great and music, which yes, may be heavy at times which I do like but because of the cheap production, it can sound a bit out of place and a tad messy.

Do SKULL PARADE fall into this trap? Rather annoyingly, they do. The production on their debut CD does sound clear sometimes, but there are a few songs where it could have been tightened up a bit. The main reason why I feel like Sweden and Heavy Metal don't mix that well is the vocal performances, as often the singers fall into a trap of focusing on the savagery of their performance over quality, which happens to be the case here, but I will give the singer points for the effort he puts into the performance. Overall, I'm not really that impressed, as the performance sounds a bit off from time to time with a bit too much screaming in places and the lyrics can be hard to hear, as sometimes everything else in the music overpowers the vocals.

Nothing more needs to be said here, so I'll end this review by saying that there are things I do like about this CD, which include the heaviness of the music, but only on a few songs and the same is said for the vocal delivery, which is okay at times but not really that great, in my opinion. If the production had been tightened up a bit more along with the performance, quality and delivery of the vocals, then this could have been a bit better, as it's certainly the better Swedish Heavy Metal release I've heard, but it's the small things I mentioned which prevent me from liking it 100%. But don't let this put the rest of you off, as I'm sure you'll like it, but as for me personally, I think the Swedes should stick to Melodic Rock and Hard Rock music.<