MDD Records continue to impress with their uncanny ability to find obscure bands from the far reaches of places like Russia and Japan. This time around its Russian melodic death metallers Deviant Syndrome, and a European release of their debut Inflicted Deviations. With George Shchelbanin's snarly vocal style, accompanied by strong keyboards and infused with atypical melodeath riffing, this album brings comparisons to the likes of early Children of Bodom. There's enough of a heavy undercurrent to keep this album from sounding too melodic, and fans of good shredding should be satisfied with the guitar work on offer. The band's shortcoming is that nothing on this record comes across as noteworthy; if one were to ask how melodeath sounded, they could easily point to this album and it would be a pretty generic but satisfactory example. That being said, Inflicted Deviations at least makes for suitable background noise, even if there's nothing about the album that could recommend it beyond any other melodeath act. At least it's still better than the last Norther album.