Sinister – Legacy of Ashes

I was surprised to see that Dutch death-metallers Sinister have made into this new decade considering the revolving door syndrome that always plagued the band’s career. I mean, this band had seen more members come in and out than an Amsterdam’s brothel on payday.

Although Sinister never quite made into the first division of European death-metal, they’ve provided some really strong and brutal works in the early nineties, for instance “Diabolical Summoning” from 1993 is a personal favourite of mine. The band’s ninth studio work “Legacy of Ashes” is actually my first encounter with the band’s sound after their 1998 release “Aggressive Measures” and I confess I was a little disappointed when I first listened to it. The sound pretty much remains the same, but essentially “Legacy of Ashes” is a bland and tiresome played-by-numbers death-metal release that doesn’t do justice to some of their past works.

Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh, “Legacy of Ashes” can be rather furious and devastating at times, but most of the songs are barely better than average and some of the riffs guitarist Alex Paul sound embarrassingly feeble and fail to utter a truly fearful brutality.

I really admire the struggle of sole surviving and original member, drummer turned vocalist, Aad Kloosterwaard to keep Sinister alive in the face of such major setbacks, but unfortunately “Legacy of Ashes” is nothing but standard death-metal album. Obviously that’s just not something that I was expecting from such veterans and renowned musicians. (5/10)

David Alexandre

Band info: www.sinister-hailthebeast.com

Label info: www.massacre-records.de

For fans of: Malevolent Creation, Immolation, Houwitser