Amenti - Under the Dying Sun

The story of Amenti is one that is infamous at least in British Metal circles. This thread gives the full story, but for a shortened version the tale goes something like this: A UK band allegedly bankrolled by one of the members parents messes allegedly around a bunch of UK promoters but allegedly goes too far when they allegedly somehow got hold of the contract to book Destruction’s UK tour and allegedly messed it up. A furore erupted with allegations being made that this allegedly left wing band, had a member who was allegedly racist. The story allegedly climaxed with Amenti allegedly splitting up 3 of the 4 members allegedly forming a new band a day later with the same tour dates but with their identities obscured by new names and masks.

There’s a whole lot of ‘allegedly’ in there, and to be honest I doubt anyone will ever know the whole or exact truth about this affair. Then there’s the music. Amenti released one album entitled “Under the Dying Sun”. The music formula here is a mixture of Mid 90’s Slayer meets Stampin Ground during the time they crossed firmly from Hardcore into Metal with stylistic touches from Exodus, Hatebreed, Biohazard and Iron Maiden. The album maintains a solid and impressive sense of groove and the guitar work is above average if not amazing. The drums were seemingly recorded using the same techniques used with St Anger and then rerecorded using a fisher price junior tape recorder, but for that the drumming is quite diverse and impacts to a considerable degree on the overall sound. Singer Mike sounds like Randy Blythe if Randy Blythe could actually hold a note and this vocal approach works well with the material.

Overall this is what most reviewers would term “a promising if not stellar debut”. True, I doubt I would listen to it again out of choice and neither would most of you, but it would have gained them fans among more commercially minded metal fan whilst being good enough for the rest of us not to hate upon and until about 6 months ago in the UK there was a sizeable online buzz about them. That buzz was extinguished when allegations about their business models were made by various sources including former touring partner and thrash elder statesmen Schmier of Destruction.

From then their trajectory was firmly downwards as more and more allegations were made by quite a few different people. If they did do any of the things they were accused of doing then they threw everything they ever earned in their 2 years of operating away. It’s a pity as if they had stayed honest (first assuming of course that they were dishonest in the first place) they probably would have been a big a draw on the uk commercial metal circuit in a few years as Panic Cell and Raging Speedhorn are now. As it is, for right or wrong none of the members will be able to show their faces in the British metal scene for quite some time to come.