Ladies and gentlemen do I have a treat in store for you today. If a calm and relaxing day of music was your goal for today, then abandon all hope ye who read and listen further for today I get to present the French Brutal Death Metal band FLESHDOLL and their newest album "Heart of Darkness." So that I do not have to keep you waiting, I will just dive right in.

Opening with "Silent Faces of Stone", right off the bat you are blasted with an earth shattering drum beat, though it does taper off during the verse. Regardless, the song is full of great gutturals, strong riffs, and some great drum work. My only regret for the song is that the consistent relentless assault on your ears from the opening didn't continue. Though the drums are great throughout it felt like a tease to have the sudden burst kind of fade to something consistently slower, as even just a moment would have been greatly appreciated. Regardless, a very strong opening song. Next on my list of songs to bring up is "Tanka", for its incredible guitar work throughout the song, showing both aspects of brutal death metal and to a degree brutal technical death metal for an introduction of a focused guitar riff/melody. Consistent throughout the whole song with an incredible performance across the board, the song blends masterfully together and is certainly worth a listen, and I personally cannot give enough praise for this song. "Into the Abyss" enters into a similar territory as this, with some great guitar work that is technical with a strong melody. It does falter in some areas, and this is not because the riffs disappear as much as they seem to fit the song less. Regardless though, like "Tanka" this is an incredible song that shines bright on the album. In general, FLESHDOLL shines for their ability to create a great and coherent song that blends well together in every aspect with guitar work that goes above and beyond.

I will say that there is the matter of "Octanis". While highly atmospheric and definitely not lacking in melody, it is a bit disjointed from the rest of the album. It is certainly worthy of praise for its composition, yet again it does not seem to find open arms in the album. Following this is "Blood Red Path". While at first it lacks that certain guitar work noticeable in previous songs, it does pick it up later on and is still a great song as before. It does start slowly admittedly, and it can be easy to dismiss the song at first as it feels lack luster as it opens. Yet at the end of every tunnel is light, and thankfully the tunnel isn't very long. Finally the album ends with "Black Formulas". I feel like a broken record because this song shines like before. At this point it likely seems that I am making out the band to be uninspired and repetitive, but it is that they shine in the aforementioned areas and the songs themselves are well made and individually unique.

In sum, while there are a couple of areas that falter at times FLESHDOLL makes some superb death metal and I would highly recommend anyone who can listen to them do. As a band they have incredible chemistry and as a whole I cannot find an area that falter in together.