Band:	Interitus Dei
Album:	In Motion
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	April 2009

01. In Motion...
02. When the Metal meets the Flesh
03. Pagan and Proud
04. Rain of Fire
05. The Portrait of Pain
06. Lord of Flies
07. Arabia
08. Strained
09. The Memories of the Snake
10. Deny Denial
11. Hasta siempre comandante Che Guevara

Being around since ´95, In Motion - coming out tomorrow - is the fourth release by the Romanian Interitus Dei, who seem to have made quite a name for themselves in their home country by now.

The bulk of their music is gothic metal, reminiscent of Paradise Lost, but apart from gothic there are a lot of different influences on this album too, ranging from glam rock (à la Lordi) over alternative rock (Marilyn Manson actually wouldn't be that far-fetched as a comparison) and some more melodic heavy metal parts and also some doomy passages. The most noticeable trademark of their sound however, is how much bass they've got on this record! Most of the songs have pretty deep or even heavy riffs, yet there are often much more melodic guitar lines in the background, accompanying the heavier ones.

Despite all the good intentions, I still have a very hard time befriending this CD. While they have a couple of totally ass-kicking riffs, they have a much bigger amount of really lame ones. Next to that, a lot of the music sounds too mechanical to me. Although this might just have been the big idea; I really wouldn't have minded some more atmosphere and emotion. The biggest downside of the album must be the vocals though. They come in two different types, very rough singing - sometimes shouting - and clean singing. The rough version of his vocal-deliverance reminds me of Lordi, but a lot less melodic. Next to that we have the clean singing and what shall I say about that? Let me put it like this; singer Bogdan Boeru (who also handles the bass guitar) misses most of the notes he attempts to hit, the ones he does hit don't sound too great either. At this point I would like to suggest that someone else handles the clean singing parts in Interitus Dei.

Like I said, definitely not everything on this CD is bad. There are a couple of songs I thoroughly enjoyed. For example "When The Metal Meets The Flesh", which has really cool riffs, and "Rain Of Fire", one of the more interesting tracks. Both of these have great choruses and the clean vocals actually fit in really well, "The Memories Of The Snake" is pretty good too.

All in all "In Motion" is better than my review probably made it sound and it does have some great approaches (I wouldn't mind at all to see this band performing live either, I think the music would come across pretty much better on stage than in the studio) but in the end this album just doesn't manage to excite me in any way.