Once every second year, I grow tired of modern Death Metal and crawl back into my cave in the deep forest and reset with copious amounts of arcane Black, Death and Heavy Metal from the real gods of the genres. When everything is fine again, I come back into the real world to have a listen to the reality of the present Metal scene. This time the newer Salt Lake City band APOLLINARIX popped up with their first full length album “Misanthropic Transcendence”, released by Void Bath Records in the US and by Polish Morbid Chapel Records in Europe. I won’t say APOLLINARIX is giving us a fresh breath with their form of Death Metal, though they are striding a tad off path, compared to much else the recent years. Heavy distorted, quite melodic guitar riffing, an effect-laden growl which works quite well in this setting. Some good grooves and catchy rhythm patterns, mixed with catchy melodic guitar leads. The first few listens were good, as there are something drawing about the atmosphere and melodies. Though as I have used time to delve into the album, it becomes a tad bland as the listens grow. That together with that I get the same feeling, as when I first laid ears upon early CATTLE DECAPITATION and VEHEMENCE, which I found quite good back then. Though both bands ended up gravely disappointing me as time went on, both with new material and the longevity of the early material. Though “Misanthropic Transcendence” has some solid points. The overall atmosphere, the melodic riffing, perhaps a newer version of the darker melodic Swedish and German Death Metal bands from the mid-nineties to the early zeroes, but again that has been made before and in many instances better. Which again leaves in the middle of the road with this album. Would I play it again after I have written the last words about it? To be honest, I don’t think so. Enter the blood rapture in the tomb of memories: www.instagram.com/apollinarix_band, www.facebook.com/morbidchapelrecords