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ENDING QUEST
The Summoning

FDA Rekotz (2014)
Rating: 6.5/10

Having formed in 2009, Ending Quest is a Swedish death metal trio. The band features Stefan Nordström on vocals and guitars, Gustav Gunnarsson on guitars, and Jonas Bergkvist on bass.

The Summoning is their debut 11-track album, which follows on from two decent demos in the form of 2010’s Led To The Slaughter and 2011’s Vlad Tepes. A heck of a job is done in injecting those mournful prods, punches and jabs into an album that would otherwise fall into that generic pit of same-sounding bands.

Ending Quest – as one would expect, and tragically so – is very much Swedish death metal that most of us have grown up with since the halcyon days of Entombed, Carnage, Dismember et al. The riffs are grainy, loose and dishevelled and have that catchy flavour about them as they ramble with savagery in tandem with the equally soiled bass-lines. Even so, in spite of the predictable nature, there are some intriguing dashes of melancholy and morbidity shoved between the usual dynamics. So, when the combo slows the tempo, the passages have an almost creaky, mouldy nature about them, which makes for an interesting listen.

It’s still rather standard death metal which – as the promotional statement claims – is constructed in worship of bands such as the aforementioned Entombed as well as Grave and Gorement, but why groups of this ilk are so obsessed with being so unoriginal is beyond me. I will say that of all the contemporary Swedish rip-offs I’ve heard, however, Ending Quest is one of the better ones.

Gloomy atmospherics abound with those ethereal segments of the morose, particularly on the introduction to ‘Sumerian Invocation’, although once the track picks up speed, it’s just another flighty slab of Swedish death metal. ‘Voices’ follows the same miserable pattern with its clanking drum and churning black waves of guitar, but hell, even the leads are pure Entombed mimicry – after a short while, this becomes rather frustrating as the band seems unable to shift itself out of that mediocre maudlin.

Again, the percussion remains intense and seems to run around the frothing guitar barrage like a frenetic sweeper in a football team eager to tidy up any loose ends. This in turn means that when at top speed, Ending Quest are just so generic that it hurts; when the guys do take the time out to lessen the aggression they apply some nice, sullen passages of slowness, but even those become predictable in terms of where they are placed.

‘A Host Of Flesh’ and to a lesser extent ‘Grotesque Abolishment’ prop up the album’s midsection, but the latter has to be the millionth time I’ve heard such a structure within the death metal field, although Stefan Nordström’s hoarse vocal cough seems more effective here alongside the pacier instrumentation.

‘Exalted And Fireborn’ showcases more fuzzed-out death ’n’ roll with its punky drum kick, and the title track – as a suspenseful instrumental – provides a melodramatic respite before Ending Quest charge out with the closing fury of ‘The Lament Configuration’, but after its initial heave you just know what’s coming as the combo resorts back to type.

So, having been born from the caverns of Stockholm, The Summoning lives up to its title in that as modern death records go, this merely exists to conjure up the ghosts of Sweden’s past. When the apparition appears though, it’s one we’ve become so used to that all frights have long since dissipated.

Neil Arnold

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