CHRONOLYTH, a Brisbane, Australia based Melodic Death Metal band was formed in the year 2011 and have already claimed "legendary" status in their native country despite being an unsigned band. They released their debut album, "Sovereign", in the year 2013 and it was completely self-financed. They have since shared the stage with illustrious bands like ALICE IN CHAINS, DEVILDRIVER, GOJIRA, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, TRIVIUM, and AT THE GATES among others. Their music is steeped deeply and influenced by European and American Melodic Death Metal. In the year 2013, they were voted #1 to support Extreme Metal icons CRADLE OF FILTH, which says a lot about the quality of their songs and live shows. Their latest offering, Atrophy, again self-financed, pays homage to their varied influences and includes traces of Black Metal, Symphonic Metal, and Hardcore.

The title track, "Atrophy", which means wasting away, is the first one out of the stable. It is a small quick instrumental clocking in at less than a minute and serves as a preview, of sorts, for the melody that follows in the second song. It starts off with an organ piece before the drums and distorted guitars join the party. The song then leads us to, rather abruptly one might think, to "Facing The Ash", the second song of the album. This track is built around the melody of the first song but delves a little deeper and goes off in various directions, at varying tempos.

"March Of the Forsaken" almost has a Progressive Metal quality to it in the way it sets in and is a furious and brisk song just over 4 minutes in length. About halfway through the song, we come up to a bit of chanting, MARCH, MARCH, MARCH..., that is surely going to be a crowd favorite at live gigs. What follows is a quick and rather melodic lead that compliments the song well.

"BURN", the last track of the album, starts off at break neck speed and has guttural vocals for company throughout its 5 minute journey. The chorus is a slightly slower portion and the song includes an odd rap part that is hard to fathom. At around the 3-minute mark, the song idles down to a slow crawl before a vicious scream takes the song on an oblique path to its end.

I suppose it is hard for an Australian band to really make any headway into the international market. They literally live at the bottom of the world, which can make touring a very costly affair. In contrast, in mainland Europe, if you drive a couple of hours, you could be in a different country! The band has received offers to perform in America and in Europe, and intend to tour and perform there in the future.

The drumming is spot on and there is a good mixture of brutal screams, slow organ backed parts, and fast riffing. Hamish McSorley has a wonderful guttural singing voice and it is up there with leading frontmen like Randy Blythe or Anders Friden.

I did find the band to be more Metalcore rather than Melodic as they claim to be. The album is extremely well produced and they are a bunch of competent artists. I really felt that, although they are good at what they do, its entirely not unique or ground breaking enough. The album is brutal but suffers from sticking to a formula that kind of gets old after a few songs. While the album does not bring about a new and exciting direction for Metal music, it will definitely make for some serious headbanging.<