Swedish Death Metal act SORCERY present their third full-length album "Garden Of Bones." Formed all the way back in 1986, they were on hiatus for nearly 20 years. Reunited in 2009, they have since released "Arrival at Six" in 2013, to critical acclaim. They purport keeping the original sound, but with modernism to create something that is evil, heavy and catchy as hell. "Holy Ground" leads off the album. It's pretty traditional in scope, and the vocals rattle with reverb as if being sung inside a metal torture device. There is a discernable chorus which is somewhat unusual for the style. "The New Armageddon" broods with a touch of Doom, with a slow pace and very low guitar tuning.

"Hellstorm" is faster and with a running guitar line. Evil, heavy, and dark, it sounds like something you might hear from ghosts of the ruins of an abandoned burial site. "Cleansed By Fire" is more immediate in terms of its chaos, pausing only here and there to lay down a heavy riff in a minor key. "The Creator" might be the best track on the album, though it isn't overly distinguishable from other tracks. This is the inherent problem with this genre in my opinion. The boundaries are so keenly set. But the riffs here are varied enough to keep things interesting. "Black Wings" is a three-minute scorcher that just lays waste to everything in its path, like a giant plague consuming the people of Earth.

Closing the album is the seven-minute title track, "Garden of Bones." It straddles the Doom and Death genres equally. Overall this is the kind of sound you would expect to here when the genre was budding, particularly in the country of Sweden. Traditionalists will be pleased with the ode to the old-school sound, like stepping back in time. Metalheads looking for a dash of spice won't find it here, however. Too many of the songs sound too similar to each other, from overuse of the same key and a desire to put heaviness at the pinnacle of the approach. What results from can be boring. Not necessarily saying that is the case here with "Garden of Bones," but it just failed to peak much of my interest.