I still didn't get what happened there. I mean, Emergency Gate aren't one of the great bands, but a solid band that knows how to write good songs and I wouldn't want to miss them live. (They are basically the only decent local band besides one or two heavy metal bands.) I liked the album "You" from 2013, a modern progressive, catchy record with amazing guitar work, but "Infected" sounds like a joke.
Melodic Death Metal isn't a new genre, you basically can't do anything that doesn't sound familiar already. But the advantage is that you can expect decent vocals from a melodic death metal singer, at least most of the time, since they often are able to sing clean vocals as well as gutturals. Yes, singer Matthias Kupka changes between the two styles. No, it doesn't sound any good. Not one single time. Kupka doesn't have a bog-standard voice and you like it or you don't. I liked his vocals until this year, but now, his gutturals sound somehow as if he had damaged vocal cords (I know that you growl and scream with the use of the diaphragm, but this guy sounds as if he is forcing his throat) and he maybe hits the one and other note by mistake while singing clean. I mean, really? Above that, there is absolutely no emotion in his voice, not even in the ballad "Peace Of Mind". And there WAS emotion and tension in that voice. And that's basically what ruins the record. The vocal lines and growling rhythms simply sound displaced, to cap it all. I surely don't like how Kupka has changed as a singer. I've always seen him as a proper melodic death vocalist. That changed now.
Other than that, everything sounds like it should. Emergency Gate can't deny their Gothenburg metal influences, but that's not necessarily bad. Keys and synthesizers sound divine as always. The rest somehow sounds forced and not as natural as the Munich-based band's previous work.
I do think that vocals are very important and therefore, I wouldn't listen to this record again because every part of it that has vocals in it annoys the hell out of me. Besides that, I'm hearing some really badly written lyrics, but that's basically the main issue of German metal bands with English lyrics. (Again, there are exceptions.) You do have to like the vocals to like the album I think. Instrumentally, it is solid and diversified and definitely worth one listen.
