The Great Deceiver - Life is Wasted on the Living

Following two releases with independent UK label Peaceville, Sweden’s The Great Deceiver took the next logical step and signed with Jake Bannon’s Deathwish Inc. as their sound was gradually developing towards a more hardcore direction. A change that will likely benefit the group simply because, stylistically their third full-length work “Life is Wasted on the Living” shares more things in common with bands like Integrity and The Hope Conspiracy than it does with someone like Katatonia or The Provenance. But while Hardcore in its simplest form relies on immediacy, The Great Deceiver prefer to build up the songs with complex structuring, dissonant chords, delays, reverb and other guitar pedals acrobatics that renders their sound a somehow psychedelic feel. A feature that might constitute no surprise considering that the creative duo of guitarists, Kristian Wahlin and Johan Osterberg used to play in the Gothic Metal group Diabolique, whose sonority was reminiscent of bands like Joy Division and Bauhaus. Add a good portion of that Entombed-styled Death-Metal attack coupled with a tad of Discharge crudeness and you’ll get the overall picture of where The Great Deceiver’s sonority lies at.
Tomas Lindberg of At The Gates fame is his usual self, like he had a very lousy day at the office, displaying the same throat-rasping vocal performance that catapulted his former outfit to worldwide recognition.
Packed with superb tunes, “Life is Wasted on the Living” elegantly assaults the listener with an unconventional mixture of Swedish Death-Metal with irreverent Hardcore that will surely appeal to the more adventurous fans of both genres. Highly recommended! (8/10)

Band info: www.thegreatdeceiver.com
Label info: www.deathwishinc.com