Sometimes, there comes bands who have great ideas that seem to fall a bit flat somewhere between conception and release. HETROERTZEN lies somewhere between being one of those bands or being a pretty decent band if I open completely honestly. Having formed in the burgeoning extreme metal subgenre scene that seems to have been rising in Chile and by most accounts later moving the band to Sweden, their most recent full length album has arrived under the name Uprising of the Fallen. As to not keep anyone waiting, I will dive right in.

Opening with "Uprising", the opening of the song is a menagerie of sounds with the goal of having an eerie despairing sound, and while it is not bad it does overstay its welcome somewhat. For the song as a whole, it is not bad but it is very slow paced. A song with a slow pace is not necessarily bad, but "Uprising" as a whole feels like it is too spaced out at parts. There are some decent riffs and good beats that are fairly atmospheric, but if I am honest it is nothing awe inspiring. Truthfully too, the vocals are off putting. They really do not seem to fit the sound of the song overall throughout most of it. As a final note though, there is some very solid guitar work throughout the song as a whole, and the guitar work is certainly what shines most for me. This trend seems to continue into "Zealous Procreation", this pattern of decent sounds overall with strong atmospheric guitar work but vocals that kind of fall flat in the midst of it all. However, I must give props to one part of the song, which is the far more noticeable criticism of religion in their lyrics through a religious choir esque sound, that sort of grandiose gradual sense of unholy doom. Yet sadly at the same time, there is a point where the band arbitrarily converts to a rock intensive sound that runs counter to the rest of it, and even if it was done for artistic purposes I cannot help but say that in my view it detracts from the song.

Truthfully, this just kind of continues. "The Fallen Star" could be called unique in that the riffs in it aren't all that great one could argue, "Path Bearer" does better in creating a sense of doom or melancholy or dread and has some great riffs compared to others on the album, "The Trial" again has that sort of rock based sound that arises arbitrarily in the song and disappears just as quick as it started and is a bit excessive in its length or focus on purely instrumental aspects, I could go on but I'd feel bad for kind of reducing the songs to a single statement, but the problem is that nothing feels particularly unique or innovative, even in relation to only other songs on the album. The vocals do certainly throw me off a bit too, but even if there was a different vocalist nothing feels special on the album. There are some ideas that could be used or furthered for future use, but as of today I cannot say that Uprising of the Fallen is anything special.