Russian melodic death metal trio INSTORM releases their second full-length record "Taming T the Chaos" five years after their debut offering "Madness Inside" via Metal Carnival Records. The band themselves identify their sound as "Neoclassical Melodic Death Metal", which could easily be noticed in the eleven-track album that combines the sound of melodic death metal, power metal and neoclassical. The game opens big time with "Day`Night" with its classic power metal riffs accompanied by the heavy melodic drumming and a gothic sounding harsh vocals. The problem I find here is that short duet in the bridge. The blending is not good at all, and I think it ruined the moment of the excellent guitar solo.

"Another Reflection", like the first song also leaned heavily on the power metal attack of the instruments but the difference is that it is more eventful having more shifts in tempo and mood plus some shorter and unique passages and that crazy fast guitar solo at its closing end. "Lethal Winter" then comes in several times darker and heavier with its mid-paced tension-filled intro led by the guitars and the drums. The mood of the song is generally dark and gloomy, which could be compared to THE SINS OF THY BELOVED's "Lake of Sorrow". The downtuned guitars played in a considerably slower tempo and the balanced power of the drums make up the dark and cold enigma of the song. Shortly after this song comes the optimistic

"Quest for the Light" whose intro could actually be mistaken to be HAMMER KING because of its old school guitar sound that sounds almost exactly the same as HAMMER KING did in "Poseidon Will Carry Us Home". "Reach for the Sky" then arrives with lots of folk elements in it. At the beginning, it sounds as if it would be a power ballad of some sort, until you hit the first minute mark and the harsh screaming is unleashed unto your face. Before summing up this review, I'd like to point out the lack of variety in the musicality. All the mentioned songs above are the core sounds, and all the rest that are not mentioned sound like duplicate of the mentioned ones. Another concern is the lack in catchiness. The energy is there, the power metal elements are omnipresent but somehow the songs simply can't keep the attention of the listener.

Then this one question pops into your head: Could death metal and power metal actually blend together nicely? Well, if you want to try so, it will surely require a massive imagination and creativity, and INSTORM is right there. That one problem they have with this album is how to keep the contradicting sounds together to make a perfect harmony. And I repeat, in records that include power metal in the sound, catchiness and epicness is key!