I love Sweden, I love Swedish metal, and I love djent. Enter DECEPTIC out of Gothenburg, with a long awaited followup to their debut album, released in 2014. DECEPTIC is a modern metal outfit bringing a progressive/melodic sound that's highlighted by just the right amount of djent sprinkled throughout. This excites me greatly. Now, they're not solely djent, it isn't the defining characteristic of their sound. But, it's also not that BS djent a lot of more alt-metal bands sprinkle in and always kind of sounds half-baked. When they djent, they djent for real, and they djent hard. Some of the finer moments even remind me of AFTER THE BURIAL, which is of course the highest of compliments. Crisp, sweet, wholesale djent.

On their sophomoric full length effort "Continuum Unknown", DECEPTIC has locked into a consistently melodic and alt-metal sound, with heavier moments being accented by djent breakdowns and verses. It's interesting to hear out of Sweden, it's not what you'd typically think of from the Gothenburg scene, but that perhaps works to their advantage here. It is something that is very suitable for American markets, given the melodic rock leanings throughout and often transitioning between cleans and screams (beautifully done, but lead vocalist William Gustafsson).

The first half of the album is softer and more al-metal/hard rock sounding. It has a consistent feeling to it, without ever having too many highs and lows. This is fine and will probably win plenty over, but I did think that was a little flat at times. For me the last 4 songs of the album were the strongest, discovering a greater contrast with heavier more metal moments. And the breakdowns just get groovier and djentier honestly.

Starting at "Lemniscate", things get decidedly heavier and we also get my favorite breakdown, which is where you really hear some of that AFTER THE BURIAL feeling I was talking about. This might be my favorite of the album. After that you have "Dissonance" with one of the heavier main riffs, and then "Arrows" which takes it even further. "Below The Sea" is a typical closer in the sense that it achieves extreme highs and lows in terms of heaviness, building into a grandiose climax. It succeeds, and ends the album well.

It really was a stronger and more metal finish, in my opinion, than the first 4 tracks which have that significant more rock vibe. These two halfs are almost knowingly transitioned together, with track 5 being the mostly instrumental and synthy "Fornekelsesekvensen" followed by "Event Horizon", which achieves a stadium rock sound on one end but then also dives into some of those groovier and heavier djent vibes, building up to the final 4 tracks.

All in all, it's a solid effort throughout. I think maybe a track reordering could benefit it, but at the same time it does seem like they have things in a particular order that works for what they want to do, and that just comes down to personal preference. It's a well performed, well produced, and well written effort that never really sucks at any point. At worst it's a little bland, and at best (and quite often) it's groovy juicy djent laced between catchy melodies.

Fans have waited a while for the followup to their debut "The Artifact", and I'm sure they're not disappointed with what "Continuum Unknwn" has to offer. It bypasses the often seen sophomore slump, and builds on their abilities in a strong way. Fans of melodic modern metal (and djent, you have to like djent) will highly enjoy the latest from DECEPTIC.