Magoa is a French band, from Paris to be exact. With 'Imperial' they released a beast upon the world, one loaded with screams, thick metallic riffs and eardrums ripping drums. The first three or four tracks, from the title track to the crushing 'Kill Us' clearly show the direction of these guys, metalcore, but with an own twist. The fifth song, 'Merge', is my absolute favorite, a dark, harsh and impending piece of music.
Although this album is as aggressive as a pitbull with a bad temper, there is plenty of room for melody. Hell, even nu-metal seems to have a place as some of these songs actually remind me of a harsh and intense version of Linkin Park. Now, don't get me wrong on this one, Magoa definitely have the capacity to rip you open, take out your guts and feed it to that pitbull. All I'm saying is that I can easily imagine young metalheads starting out with Linkin Park and eventually becoming huge fans of a band like Magoa.
So who to recommend this album to? Well, metalcore adepts will undoubtedly appreciate the brutality, the screams and the axe wielding riffs so I think this is one for them. Furthermore, fans of modern day melodic metal should probably give this a shot as well, they might be mindblown by a song like 'Endlessly'. Finally, this is something for maturing nu-metal fans who like a touch of electronics in their metal. So check it out, it'll be a blast...
​Serge