The Firstborn – Lions Among Men (2012)

Hailing from Portugal, today we have The Firstborn and their 4th full-length release “Lions Among Men”. With a very interesting and different sound, this album is surely complex enough that it takes more than a few listens to fully sink in. Featuring a mixture of Meshuggah-like influences (on the guitars mainly) with some middle-eastern elements and some occasional Avant-garde BM styling’s, this release is indeed very well crafted, but hard to fully enjoy at first.

Opening with the commanding “Lions Among Men”, you immediately know this is going to be an interesting release due to its unusual structure and sound. The very low guitars make the atmosphere sound very thick and perverse, something that you usually get on Sludge releases. With some of those middle-eastern mystical sounds at the beginning “Without as Within” continues the heavy atmosphere and expands on the bands crushing sound with some more riffing assaults and perfectly crafted slowdowns.

The vocals of Bruno Fernandes are the perfect fit for such interesting and crushing music. Opening with a very typical BM riff, “Vajra Eyes” makes its way to deliver a nice chugging track that effectively breaks the current flow of the album. The Doom Metal feeling of this track is excellent and the stop and go approach is very well structured, same goes for the epic “Eight Flashing Lances” and its clean vocal sections.

Our favorite track comes with the name of “Nothing Attained, Nothing Spoken”. In this song, the very eerie clean vocals and the ritualistic feeling of this song reminded us of Secrets of the Moon and similar bands. The guitar work is excellent in this track and it gives that crushing feeling that nicely surrounds the more delicate atmospheric elements lying underneath.

“Sounds Liberated as Mantra” provides a very nice closer for such an interesting and surprising album. This track leaves the listener hypnotized with its excellent progression and the again very ritualistic vocals and foreign elements. Overall, while taking a while to sink in, “Lions Among Men” is a truly exciting and rewarding release. We can only hope that the band keeps up the good work and gets noticed more in the future, but for now we can strongly advise you to get this release.

Release: March 5th, 2012

Country: Portugal