So, Greek technical Death Metallers ACID DEATH disbanded – well, at least formally, in 2001, and their 2nd album, "Random’s Manifest", was recorded as late as some twelve long years ago. Back in those days people tend to compare ACID DEATH’s 2 previous albums to such names as CYNIC, ATHEIST, DREAM THEATER and DEATH musically, so they must have been kinda impressive sounding indeed, as I should believe. I also kept my hopes relatively high regarding the band’s sort of ‘comeback’ album "Eidolon", firmly trying to believe they would have stuck to the successful musical formula where they left off on the previous recording of theirs, "Random’s Manifest". The album’s opened with a sort of an instrumental prelude ‘Mind Reflection’, which doesn’t sound bad at all. In fact, there’s some nice riffing going on in this tune, making me honestly think this track might well set a tone for the rest of the record too. ‘Crossing The Line’ comes next. Right after the first 2-3 minutes, I heard a scream of a slight disappointment in my head, screaming me somewhat furiously, these once appreciated Greek technical Death Metallers had adopted a more modern sounding style on "Eidolon" that almost instantly should have turned my ears off completely from them. There’s more groovy stuff involved within their new-found sound, more modern, trendy nu-metal (the hideous name combination ‘nu-metal’ should always be written with small letters; it has no value in my books because it’s NOT FUCKIN’ METAL in the very place at all) type of elements that I absolutely despite in today’s overall trendy Metal music scene. Even vocalist / bassist Savvas Betinis has mutated some of his vocal parts into those almost nu-metal type of partly growling screams, which I don’t like much either. Gladly, there’s also some of their old style to be found from "Eidolon"; those DEATH-ish and CYNIC-esque, tricky and mind-tickling parts that undoubtedly most of us have used to hear from them. A song like ‘Convict 655321’ is a fine example of that. The song’s got the same heaviness in the guitar tone that DEATH had on their "Spiritual Healing" album. In addition to that, I just love that meaty and heavy bass sound that is everywhere on "Eidolon". However, still despite many cool things that they have managed to bring in for this record, there’s also something disturbing here that may push some people away from them (at least the ones who dug the hell out of ACID DEATH’s 2 previous records what they represented musically well over a decade ago), due to this a bit annoyingly more modern approach to their stuff on "Eidolon". In a nutshell, something good – and something not that good is what ACID DEATH have got on offer on "Eidolon". Go and listen yourself – you be the judge. Band contact: www.aciddeath.net, label: www.noiseheadrecords.com