I have my apprehensions against widely acclaimed bands. Everyone praises the ground Children of Bodom play on, yet outside of their shredding ability there’s not much to their music. People go gaga over The Black Dahlia Murder when it is merely At the Gates retreaded again and again… and poorly at that. You have people that love Trivium, somehow thinking that ripping off Carcass somehow makes their clichéd metalcore forgivable. You have all the praise that Chimaira gets, yet their whole spiel has been nothing but crappy Fear Factory imitation and more recently some crappy Nile imitation as well. Needless to say, I’m hesitant about Darkane.

"Dude, they’re one of the best Swedish acts EVER!!!! They got the best of Gothenburg, Meshuggah, and none of the crap!"

I hear variations of that a lot. I don’t trust it. Last time someone told me to listen to a "great" album they put it in the same sentence with Bleeding Through and were wearing a Cradle of Filth t-shirt. So, as you can tell, I’ve ignored Darkane for the longest time mainly because I hear similar things.

Loading up Layer of Lies was at first disconcerting: immediately the intro hits you with this orchestral piece not unlike the epics pieces in a Rhapsody album. I’m not even 30 seconds into this album and already I’m thinking that the lead singer is going to whip out shit about elves and their quest for the Magical Dragon Nipple Flame of Doom that is buried beneath the Mountains of the Great Nerd Horde of Virginal Impotence and guarded by Albert Milton Frost-Weathers, Junior and his merry band of obese butter trolls. Luckily, the album resembles nothing of the sort.

Despite the very deceptive intro, the music is actually a little decent. Darkane puts out a somewhat solid, semi-technical style of Swedish thrash that merges the best parts of Soilwork with a small bit of Meshuggah’s complexity and drumming. There’s no doubt that "Secondary Effects" and "Organic Canvas" are decently catchy songs with pretty good structure. The solos are strong, but nothing spectacular. However, "Maelstrom Crisis" is a very fulfilling instrumental with tight playing and even some progressive leanings.

Unfortunately, that’s where the praise ends. Outside of those merits, the album falls on the flat side. The majority of tracks after and including the title track are expendable. The title track itself suffers from a horribly written chorus and just really poor choice of vocal arrangement. The riffs, while tight, are mostly generic and won’t perform over say the new Arsis, Deceased, or- to be more appropriate with the Meshuggah elements- Coprofago record. Ultimately, the record is at best decent, at worst mediocre, but in no way needed and certainly is very much overrated.

If you find Layer of Lies in a used cd bin for $3-4, then go ahead and blow some money on it; what is good on here is worth a listen or two. But certainly ignore it if the price is anything more, and also hit your asshole friend trying to tell you how this is the greatest thing to come out of Sweden. Yet again this is proof that I shouldn’t trust when people tell me how awesome something is.

Written By: Necro-tron