The Summary Judgment Reviews:
Title: Inwards
Artist: Dew-Scented
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release Date: 2/19/02

Rating: 3 Skulls
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    • Reviewed by Requiem (5/22/02):
    Band bios can often be inaccurate but I was pleased to see that this one was right on the money as far as comparisons go. Comparing the band to Slayer, Death, At the Gates and The Haunted are about as accurate as it gets. In fact the band caters to their influences so much that there is little originality left. It's not easy to be original in metal these days where almost everything imaginable has been done, nor is it every band's intention to be original. That said, Dew-Scented are just playing music that they are influenced by and play it as tight as anyone, but in the end I can't say that this music is far above the middle mark.

    Dew-Scented take on a death metal meets thrash attitude and sound with a slight nod to metalcore on a few occasions. Most of the material is energetic and fast, recalling the early Slayer days up to the Divine Intervention days. All this is handled in a much more death metal oriented fashion with lots of single note guitar shredding and plenty o' double bass and blast beat tempos which bring in the At the Gates salutes. Occasionally, they'll dive into a more simplistic E chugga riff reminiscent of the recently popular Diecast. The more simple stuff is usually a crowd pleaser but as a whole their music leans heavily on the more technically based end of things. Rounding out the band is vocalist Leffe Jensen, who takes his stance on the middle ground of all the previously mentioned genres, delivering a combination shout/growl, bringing to mind Swedish skullbashers The Haunted.

    It looks like there is room for improvement all around for Dew-Scented. They have a mediocre logo, album cover, as well as the corny font dominating the albums cover. The music is good, but it's nothing to run home and tell Mom about. At this point, their sound caters to a few different audiences so I'm sure most that are new to the metal world, will find this as a great introduction to many great styles of metal. Those of us with a decade or more of the metal lifestyle under our metal belts, will find that this is nothing more than an average release that probably will gather more dust than it will airplay in our living rooms.
    3 out of 5

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