Detonation, we can pretty much say for sure it’s Holland’s best melodic death metal band. In 2003 they released a high quality debut and they continued to deepen their own sound of melodic death metal. Now they release their third album, Emission Phase.

 

Detonation’s debut was called An Epic Defiance and the word ‘epic’ very much resembles the feeling their music breathes, from the first to the last second their music holds you firmly in its grasp. Although there are quite an amount of melodic death metal bands today of which the most of course hail from Scandinavia, there fortunately still are bands that know how to give the genre their own twist. While many bands today try to throw in some clean vocals, Detonation is more about the great melodic guitar riffs, which are the greatest strength of the band. I believe ‘Chokedamp’ is actually the first song of Detonation ever in which some clean vocals appear. For the rest they staid very close to their original sound and this sound is some of the most compelling music I ever heard, you will totally get dragged along the many fine guitar melodies. There aren’t many changes compared to their previous records, but everything is just a little bit better worked out.

 

When I first listened to Emission Phase I was like, damn they’re doing the same thing again; their style hasn’t changed a lot since their debut. After hearing the record multiple times I had to conclude that this isn’t a weakness at all, because Detonation always delivers high quality music and although they stick to the same formula they manage to keep their music interesting and catching. Emission Phase is a compulsory record for every melodic death metal fan and every enthusiast of melodic metal in general.