Genre: Progressive melodic death metal
Origin: Italy
Released: 2010
Website: Kenos
Label: My Kingdom Music
Uploaded: 01.03.10

I don’t know, I’m skeptical… Melodic death metal isn’t my bag, and neither is thrash metal, which Kenos frequently laces their music with. But after a bunch of mediocre, highly uninteresting, bland and run of the mill sounding melodic death metal releases from My Kingdom Music I have to say these Italians at least offers something more unique and non-commercial.
Room sexteen (sexteen, what the hell?) starts off with a rather gothic sounding intro, that in my book could just as well be some Cradle of Filth crap, but the track continues on into a frantic, fast paced song with plenty of thrashing death riffing and gnarly screaming vocals. It’s quite an energetic trip while they’re really going at it, and at times it sounds somewhat reminiscent of At the Gates. So I feel there is hope for X-Torsion to not suck donkey dick. The following track, 2012 omega assimilation, starts off with yet another gothic intro in the same vein as the previous track, before the song really gets going, and I’m starting to see a pattern here. Luckily the tempo is really fast paced here, and blastbeats are on the rise in the midst of heavily chugging riffs. Despite the fact that it’s way more melodic than I’d normally listen to, and that they have a tendency to use gay, semi-spoken backups in the vein of Cradle of Filth I have to admit that this is some extremely energetic and fairly brutal stuff. The outbreaks of operatic vocals adds a really cool touch to the song, so why poison is with the horrible goth shite?
The riffing as well as drumming has a certain level of technicality throughout the entire album, and they slickly go from frantic fast pace to slower and headbanger friendly tempos, with an end result that goes very rapidly back on forth, but flows naturally as well. The screaming vocals are a little bit too gnarly for my taste, but that’s something I can overlook when it’s so noticeable that Kenos haven’t settled for a conventional sound in the vein of In Flames and every other crappy melodic death metal acts. The song structures, the riffing (which at times flirts with black metal as well as the already stated thrash), tempos and vocals; it’s all quite unorthodox for the style. It’s not really my cup of tea, and the horrible I remember (with some of the worst clean vocals I’ve ever heard) is a track I’d soon wish to forget about, but they really have something going here. So if you’re into technical, progressive and thrashing melodic death metal I can highly recommend this album.

Tracklist:
01. Room sexteen
02. 2012 omega assimilation
03. Encounter
04. I remember
05. X-Torsion
06. Bitchswitch
07. Erocktika (desert dancing raven queen)
08. Revolver revival
09. AddictionXtinction
10. Eyes of hurricane part. 2