Genre : Progressive Rock/Metal
Label : Nightmare Records
Origin : Denmark
Rating : 9.3 / 10
Buy it now
Anubis Gate opens up and blows you a million space miles away by the incoming melodic power it invites through itself, but don't be all that afraid - who has the time to fear, anyway? - as the sonic stimulus will stick with you, courtesy of carrying you on its wings while having its sublime run.
This release has the embedded mark of superstrong focus written - almost - all over it, as the content is beyond doubt a vault of legit, relevant harmonic/melodic sculptures, constructs that reign completely free of stone-orthodox compositional techniques and the closely related GTFO-factor. Anubis Gate is at heart accessible, yet truly soulful music with legit life - oxymoron!! - in it, and brings nothing less than elegant reflections of these assuaging facts. Read on to observe how this affair glorifies the epitome of thoughtful melody with the finely calibrated instruments of sci-fi metal.
Anubis Gate sounds thick, meticulously polished, and eloquently varied. The meat-mass of the content though does not show all that much interest to wrap itself around the everyday average rendition of "metal". It does much more interesting things with its monstrous meat-mass, instead. As hinted, the scientifically sculpted, eloquent and exigent melody is of key importance on this LP. If you are a proper snob for exigent melody and harmonic structures AND a proud of that, rest assured that Anubis Gate brings your way on this LP a whole packet of delicious content to soak your starved ears into. The character of the instrumental sound is beyond all doubt metal, and the mean, fat, down-tuned, rumbling kind of it too, yet this rumble is rode by a vocal presence that bravely and magnificently deviates from the unwritten rules of "proper" - PHA! - metal singing.
Former bassist-, now lead vocalist Henrik Fevre has a pleasant timber in his pipes with a solid range to them, and the power needs no extra invitation cards to join the fray, either. The record has clean vocals, exclusively, vocals that border on pop and kick your lousy ass proper nevertheless, and this does not sound to be the result of a lack of capacity to deliver along the orthodox metal channels of rasp/siren-mode/growl/whatnot. This album simply does not need these techniques, since its themes, along with the granite-solid instrumental contribution, are reflecting a pretty integral spiritual stance, one which by sheer, honest anti-interest, negates the need to summon/channel the angst-driven methodologies of the genre. This is not an angry album at all. This is a honest album, and that is the most a record can ever hope for.
The compositions tend to have a quite healthy length to them, which gives the band a suitable amount of real estate to offer solid intro sections and bravely varied middle jams to surround the respective cores of each declarations with. Anubis Gate is not all that concerned with being heavy for the sake of being JUST that, managing to acquire mere heaviness via inflating - in a positive way, mind you - the characteristics of the harmonic structures. This is a truly valiant record in the sense that it never allows itself to stray away from its own-, quite high expectations cultivated and superbly satisfied in the compositional department, - meaning : yes, the songs themselves are slick - and music herein always gets its abundant benefits, having an audibly great and grateful time for the constant efforts being put into entertaining it for what it - music - is.
Anubis Gate is an intelligently serious and seriously intelligent record, but not over-emoted, - only on one occasion : "Uuuuuse yoooour eeeeeyes!!" I promise I will. Now calm down and come here, Henrik. You sound like you need a hug. The lyrical themes mostly are focused on thoughtful - and quite soulful, too - observations regarding the human condition, and there are a whole lot of things to consider on that field, wouldn't you agree? It is quite safe to say that the written contribution on Anubis Gate's latest manages to exhibit ballsy poetic qualities, simply by grabbing the deepest questions by their throats, and not being afraid of any answers this explicit act may yield. It is evident that there are true, legit private investigations loaded into these lyrics as fuel, and these worded thoughts and feelings are very realistic and pleasant to relate to, because they reflect deep aspects of the human condition that humanity as a hive-entity shares and experiences, but the individual is a chickengirl/chikenboy to admit. "Normally." Not Anubis Gate. The lyrics have relevance and balls, and these assertions are not necessarily self-explanatory these days. Until you were born that way, of course.
Rating : 9.3 / 10
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