Style: melodic death metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: humanity, the human condition
Thoughts: I don't know if I've ever heard an opening song as immediately impactful as Beast of Man. Drop the needle, a few moments of silence then BAM! The band comes storming in full force with drums, near full on death metal riffs and a screaming guitar solo. Now THAT is how you make an entrance.
Beast of Man remains one of my favorite songs of the band, it's just a shame that they were never able to reach that level of intensity again... on this release or any other. In fact there is a large section of this album that I would consider well below par for an acceptable melodic death metal song. Fortunately though that is not the complete story of this album.
First off the bad. Multiple songs in the middle of the album - namely Let the Killing Begin and Dark of the Sun. These songs meander and have some really awful riffing from time to time. Pair this with Johan's yell/bark vocals and you don't have a very good song.
Now then... the good. Beast of Man is an easy starting point here. The song starts the album off with a bang and gets me pumped every time I listen to it. The melodies in the title track are also top notch. Black Earth and Tears of the Dead both have great riffs and melodic moments in them, great palate cleanser after the poor songs mentioned earlier.
Then there is the truly sublime. The instrumentals on the last part of the album are insanely well put together. Vox Stellarum builds up to a beautiful crescendo before going into the epic closing track. Bridge of Destiny is a tale of two parts. The first part is a well executed melodic death metal song, but the outro - holy shit. This is how you end an album. Epic melodies, dramatic build ups, finality. This is how you do it folks.
Stigmata remains likely my favorite album of the band. It's an inconsistent beast but the good far outweighs the bad and I find myself wanting to listen to it over and over again even some twenty five years after its initial release. If that doesn't say something for the quality then nothing will.
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