Tracklist:

Carmine Preface (Entrance)
Sterling Black Icon
Weave Their Barren Path
Dear Floating Water
Breathe In The Black To See
Ride For A Fall
A Faint Illumination
Live For The Moment, Stay Till The End
Scythe Of Scarecrow
Onward To The Finger Of God
Stand The Tempest
Chambre Noir (Departure)

Label: Metal Blade Records
Playing time: 50:30
Sam Anetzberger - Vocals
Stefan Weimar - Guitar & Vocals
Sascha Ehrich - Guitar
Wolfram Schellenberg - Bass
Ingo Maier - Drums

Seeking to develop their melodic death metal sound a bit further in their third album (subtitled Chapter III-Black But shining, Germany’s Fragments of Unbecoming recruited vocalist Sam Anetzberger formerly of the more brutal/technical death metal act Legacy. The result is that FoU are a bit leaner, meaner and sound a lot like melodic death metal’s harsher older brother, akin to the likes of The Forsaken and Detonation rather than total In Flames, Dark Tranquility clones.

Don’t get me wrong, Sterling Black Icon still isn’t particularly original or groundbreaking record, but Anetzberger’s more guttural voice (along with the expected rasp from guitarist Stefan Weimar) does give the album a bit more heft amid the typical Swedish dual harmonies and galloping pace.

Just like Skywards, FoU set the tone early in the album with a blistering title track, before settling into slightly more average, if well done material. The rest of the album is consistently well rounded and varied as the tracks make the usual rounds of mid paced and moody ("Dear Floating Water", "Breath In The Black to See",) and more urgent up tempo numbers ("Weave Their Barren Path", "A Faint Illumination", "Live For This Moment, Stay `Til The End", "Scythe of Scarecrow"), all flocked with plenty of catchy melody and creative solo work. Then of course there’s the instrumental intro/outro/segues to break the album a bit ("Camarie Preface", "Onward to the Finger of God", "Chambre Noire") and show you FoG’s more introspective side.

To their credit, FoU, though musically fairly predictable, do have more intellectual themes, lyrics and concepts that rise above usual melodic death metal archetypes, and certainly make the inlay sheet worth reading and to be honest creative that small snippet of extra interest in the music, as generically solid as it is.

Sterling Black Icon is a pretty good album. It’s more creative and developed than Skywards and thanks to Anetzberger, does have a bit more brawn to its glossy sheen. Still, it cant overcome the NWDSM ‘blahs’ because of the genre’s rather dead horse aura. Still, there have been some good ones this year, and Sterling Black Icon should be considered one of them.