It doesn't take long to figure out that By Night hail from Sweden as the material featured on this, their full-length debut, liberally plunders the style fellow Swede's Meshuggah helped to pioneer so many years ago. But then again, in By Night's favor their material takes on the complex technical ability and ferocity of the aforementioned group and parlays it into far-less jarring structures.

In essence this approach allows them to distill their pummeling rage and tightly wound blasts of razor-sharp syncopation into a much more direct assault. Capitalizing on this with a vocal style that can at times recall The Haunted or Carnal Forge, the thrashy overtones that are draped over this jagged soundscape give the band an immediate impact. In fact, it is this persistent sense of aggression and hunger that make this album stand out and become a sum greater than that of its now often-imitated parts.

With a running time of only 35 minutes though, the constant momentum and lack of distinctive difference from song to song do work against what the band could have possibly achieved here. It's over before you know it, even if nearly every song included does bleed with abrupt vehemence. If an overpowering, though admittedly regimented, mixture of some of the best aspects of modern Swedish metal are what you're looking for, then you can't do much better than "Burn The Flags". But there's still not enough identity present here to allow them to burn, let alone fold, the readily visible flags of those who influenced them just yet.