This is the seventh album from Beheaded, a Maltese death metal band
Following on from 2017’s Beast Incarnate and 2019’s Only Death Can Save You, Beheaded have now returned with the first death metal album ever written in Maltese. Għadam contains 40 minutes of new material, and it probably doesn’t sound like you’d expect it to.
This is an interesting development so far into Beheaded’s career. Basically, they have kept the core of their death metal brutality mostly in place, but augmented it with traditional Maltese influences and sounds. There are even clean vocals, used sparingly, but to good effect. Add to this a darker, blackened tone and texture, alongside an aura of Gothic doom metal, (sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit), and you have a collection of songs that showcase a band doing something different with their sound.
The style and feel of the album cover indicates the music’s stylistic shift. Of the latter, this brings with it more of a Morbid Angel feel in places, (particularly in the vocal department), along with elements of a band like Behemoth. However, in other places Għadam is resolutely unlike anything that those bands have done.
Beheaded’s death metal is punishing and harsh, yet has been enriched by folk-inspired melodies and atmospheres, giving the music a different texture than is the norm for the band. Beheaded have retained their core ferocity, but with their newly developed influences they have broadened it to includes greater depth of scope. The blackened elements work well with Beheaded’s death metal heart, making Għadam a well-rounded slab of heaviness that offers something a little different to what most people think of when they think of Beheaded.
Although I’m sure there will be some Beheaded fans that dislike this change of sound, I think this is a great development for the band to have gone through. this progression in style reveals a new side of Beheaded, and Għadam is a record that is well-realised, with solid worldbuilding.
Highly recommended for fans of the abovementioned bands, as well as acts such as Belphegor, God Dethroned, Hate, Impureza, etc.
Wonderbox Metal 