THE DUSKFALL are an old school melodic metal band from Luleå, Sweden, and this is their 5^th studio release. The album, as long as their previous material has an old school style with quite a modern sound. They remind me a lot of the more famous melodic bands, such as DARK TRANQUILITY, with KREATOR-like vocals, and gang vocal elements.

The first song, "To The Pigs" opens with an intro that for me, sounds as if taken out of a KREATOR album from their later era, very bombastic, very melodic, very good in general, and straight to blast beats, the head starts moving like a bobble head, and it's not stopping for the whole song.

"Farewell" kicks in, and the intro is more like DARK TRANQUILITY, but the rest of the song, has a strong IN FLAMES/CHILDREN OF BODOM influence, with the extra melodic guitars, and the verse riff, bobble head action still nowhere near the end...

"I Can Kill You" is a more groovy song, still heavily influenced by the classic Swedish melodic metal bands, but stands its own ground due to the refreshing clean-ish vocals and groovyness. Neck starts to ache, head doesn't stop moving.

The next 2 songs, the title track "Where The Tree Stands Dead" and "We The Freaks" follow the same pattern as the rest of the album, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, because the flow is not disrupted.

"Endgame" can be considered the "ballad" of the album. A mid-tempo beast of melody and heavy riffs with the said clean-ish vocals again, great track.

"Hate For Your God" is another slower track, and again with clean vocals throughout, reminds of the later IN FLAMES but better.

The rest of the album jumps back into the mosh pit with a barrage of fast paced Melodic Death Metal songs, all except...

"We Bleed"... The guys saved the best for last. It's a musical blend of Thrash and Melodic Death Metal, basically sounds as if it could have been on a later KREATOR or SLAYER album even, the screams of Magnus are piercing, the guitar work is spot on as on the rest of the album, the definite highlight of the CD

All in all, one of the better Old School Melodic albums of the year.<