A good album on offer from  Swedish sextet Marionette. ‘Enemies is a powerful, competent and varied effort  with lots of break-downs and keyboards.

Fear Factory and In Flames would seem to be obvious sources of inspiration for much of the material.

I’ll be straight-forward and say that the album as a whole doesn’t really raise its head above the surface compared to many other modern metal releases out there. The single-tracked, ever-screaming vocal performance through-out has a lot to do with this, methinks.

There is one exception, though; the track the The Lie sees Marionette putting on their sensitive hat and adding quiet acoustic guitars combined with the smash-on brutality that otherwise dominates the album. This most definitely suits the Swedes! Wonderful piece that kind of wakes you up well over halfway through the album.

For rabid fans of modern metal only.