After a spiritual beginning in "Aporia" the album kicks off with more spirituality in "Asterion". A nice death metal effort with rough vocals and slamming drum beats. But before I know it, I am already at the next track "Interregnum". This is the biggest problem with "Empyrean", The transitions are so smooth that the album could actually be considered as one big song. Nothing wrong with that but the cuts between tracks is in some really awkward places. I think that if the band worked with this album for about another week or two these problems would be gone. But for now it just sounds sloppy.
Anyway, back to the music. "Interregnum" introduces the cleaner vocals and does it with such a strength that it makes me really impressed. David Holch definitely has talent on harsh vocals but when he goes clean he is on a whole different level. Those clean vocals gives the songs a whole new dimension that benefits the band. And that is not only shown on "Interregnum" but also on "Imperialus", "Anathema" and "Infineon". But if we ignore the vocals and instead focus on the instrumental parts I find that Mechina puts the main focus on the drums and the programming to really blend the orchestral sound with heaviness. The bass is almost nowhere to be seen and the guitar only takes over at few spots since there are no solos what so ever, something I could have wished would have appeared on "Empyrean" to get more variation to the songs.
There are no particularly bad songs on "Empyrean" but there are songs that easily goes past the radar unnoticed. The title track is one of those songs. It does not have anything that makes it stick out from the rest of the crowd which instantly makes it a song that you take less interest in. Still not a bad song but far from breathtaking.
"Empyrean" ends with its longest song "Terminus", an 10 minute long epic that is heavy, melodic and epic all in one good mash-up. But I still feel like there is something missing. I could have wished that the band would have made this song different from what we have heard from the other songs on "Empyrean", something that made this song stand out besides from its length. It is a fine song , no doubt about that, but it is not a song worthy of a bigger recognition.
Overall I really enjoyed "Empyrean" with its outer space feeling and fantastic drum beats. I did not find too much industrial metal in their sound but I am glad over that since I think the industrial part would have taken over if it gotten too much space. But if you are going to listen to "Empyrean" yourself then please take my advice. Listen to the whole album in one piece. This is not a album where you can pick out certain tracks and listen to them alone, it is a album best experienced in its entirety.
Songs worthy of recognition: Interregnum, Anathema, Catechism
Rating: 8/10 Asterions
No comments:
Post a Comment