Ihsahn - Eremita review

Year : 2012
Genre : Black Metal Interruptions
Label : Candlelight
Origin : Norway
Rating : 8.2 / 10

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When a 2012 metal release features post-breakdown Nietzsche - he is your papi - on the covert art, you know you have music to listen to, and this one is the solo project of Ihsahn, who primarily is renowned as the ex-fronter of prestigious Norwegian black metal ensemble Emperor. I became remotely familiar with the style of Ihsahn through the latest to date Jeff Loomis solo album, - "Plains Of Oblivion, AKA. "POO", but the album kicks the ass as opposed of buckling out of it, pardon my French" - on which he - Ihsahn - lends vocal talents on one of the songs. Jeff Loomis delivers a solo on THIS album from rebound position, so things are even.

The package is pretty clear, consistent and efficient at what it wants to do. The main agenda is to entertainingly deceit, as oftentimes the disk administers the maelstrom-type of chaotic black metal, which gets playfully interrupted by either a much tamer-, almost hard rockish hook from time to time, or, even by a shamelessly gentle and easily accessible mini-session. The first song is an example to this method right away, but rest assured that the compositional behavior realized in the opening track is one that is propagated throughout the release with solid appeal. Read on to find out more about this.

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Cynthesis - Deevolution review

Year : 2011
Genre : Ambient Progressive Metal
Label : Candlelight
Origin : United States
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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Cynthesis' Deevolution sounds to be a restrained, calmly paced quasi-progressive, quasi-chillout - more on these notions later - metal record with heavy attraction resonated towards ambient backgrounds, mid-tempo structures, shy synths and arpeggiated guitars. A sense of sugar-overdose minimalism also is in the vicinity armed with unfortunate enthusiasm to whisper about its capacities from time to time, but, fortunately enough, the band members - usually - have a sober awareness regarding the moment from which on the singer is singing for himself, primarily.

Solidification : album closer called A Song of Unrest is a pretty muscular track of the release in my opinion, and the mere structure of this song is one the LP is fond of utilizing. Yet, the solid melodies and the inventive harmonic background structures the singed sequences collide with herein, are not always as interesting and tasteful as they are in this particular delivery. Read on to find out more about this likable ambient/progressive metal spin.


Cynthesis' Deevolution is not all that concerned with the probable meta-definition of metal, and the band's primordial behavior leans more and more towards extremely calm upon hitting the middle point of this honest, elegant debut release. First let's scrutinize the full power - full instrument engagement modes of the album. The LP produces a wide, sanely reverberated sound via its more crowded instrumental sections, sometimes interrupted though by highly idiotic variation that does not do any justice to the song in the spin at all. Solid track number 3, called Divided Day, for example. This nice mid-tempo build gets squashed by some kinetic grinding from time to time, which sounds like the sound you expect to hear when attempting to murder a living being with a snarl and a pneumatic driller, what is the reason for this?? It does not sound good at all.

As for the quite present ambient ingredient, the album, it seems and sounds to me, seeks to summon the Blade Runner spiritual vibe so palpable in the 1982 motion picture. You know, when Deckard - Harrison Ford - looks out of his handsome head into the cybernetic city in the company of his last bottle of bourbon, and it is hard to tell if there is a woman on his mind or the thought to look for the remote to adjust the volume of the background music. Blade Runner Blues by Vangelis. This is the music you want to hold your dream woman in the rain for. THAT is the music for such images, and, I tend to think that Cynthesis tried to recreate this vibe, and, what's more important : the results of the experiment sometime demand closer scrutiny! While track number 4 is nothing special in my opinion, - still good for a filler - 5 is about to ride out on a truly efficient, rabid, sexy mid-tempo build that did not yet decide to tolerate you or to end you in unreasonably violent fashion.

Track number 7, called Twilight though, is very easy to relate to as a piece that reveals Cynthesis' variation on the Blade Runner Blues, at least, according to my percepts. Only, this time, it is not the lead synth that addresses its favorite misery, instead, it is two guitars : one is your everyday average nuclear heavy metal solo guitar wearing Puma sport shoes, the other Kermit's bubblegum guitar, but that one is cute, too, while playing its program time of 7 seconds or so. Unfortunately, the Cynthesis dudes did not put the effort to improvise / develop a legit, epic solo all over the ambient sonic wall, - BOOOOOOOOSH! - and I tend to think that they have created a beautiful sonic entity and they put a knife in its body. Not a nice gesture at all. Geez, this review is becoming a horror special. Anyway, this is a likable album without doubt, and its aspiration to compliment the caressing, comforting capacities of ambient synth music is nicely realized. But, keep in mind : whenever the album turns to an ambient format, then it is "just" that, and the one moment it collides epic ambient with nuclear metal, the magic, as noted, is not given the praise it demands. Other than that, this is a safe recommendation.

Rating : 7.5 / 10

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Absu - Abzu review

Year : 2011
Genre : Black Metal Thrash Metal hybrid
Label : Candlelight Records
Origin : United States
Rating : 8.8 / 10

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The Absu to date is a rabid black / thrash metal act that simply can't be arsed to spend seconds / minutes spouting at a random crimson moon with a corpse or two while riding on the same tremolo layers for wrist-slicing effect. Absu gives you that classic feel of unforgiving, Emperor Palpatine-grade black metal, but it mounts thrash metal rockets on all possible points you can think of along its body.

Opening track called Earth Ripper is a strong example of the elegant plan of the record : the fabric herein, though easily decipherable, remains relentlessly heavy BUT valiantly playful and alive, nevertheless. An elegant riff runs around left and right on top of good old intensified thrashing, and the madly rhythmized vocal / lyrical contribution of drummer / vocalist Proscriptor McGovern is a total fit for the extremely pissed off status report the song registers as. The LP has an occult theme to it, yet the structures - fortunately - show much more interest to reveal the Mad Mage in Intense Summoning-vibe in a larger than life, hilarious comic book fashion, and has no intent to wage a full scale war on your will to exist. If you want to hear occult black metal getting chased around with the big ass minigun of thrash for a change, then you need not to look further. You need to read on, oh!, useful infidel.

Abzu is composed of two main sections, and the common denominator of those is the old school, bravely and smartly varied reckless thrash metal, which though speaks the language of black metal. As for the two main sections, the first twenty minutes of the record is composed of five gritty, furious tracks with respective running times around 3:30 to 5:00, while the second part of the release is a monster-track nearing 15 minutes. It is a kind of deceit, though, and here is why : this second section, dominated by the monster-track, sounds to contain autonomous smaller tracks of similar character, only these have been embedded into one. So, don't expect an epic declaration of progression or something like that.

As hinted, the forms and general shapes of things and patterns you hear are black in character, but they are incoming along the structures and methodologies that are super-common to thrash. This inventive pairing is toppled by the tight, sanely balanced - regarding its frequency of occurrence - vocal presence. The vocals, while they are belonging to good old fashioned spouting at heart, pack legit, tight power, and it is notable that they are not faked in a GTFO fashion, like in metalcore.

Absu's Abzu sounds like the inner sonic outburst necessarily conceived by the panicked mind of a mad wizard who accidentally messed up his highly illegal demon summoning pentagram, and now he assesses his experiences for the fabric and related sake of All Unholy Remembrance, knowing that the demon he just invited will have the fat right to rip him to tiny pieces, and has zero doubt that it will do, too. Proscriptor McGovern addresses the highly mysterious, and none less vast perspectives and soul-swallower entities of Enochian Magick all over the LP, and his related lamentations find infinite ways to shoot out genuinely "heavy-sounding word pairs", so to speak, and this is the main idea herein. You don't necessarily need to look for direct meaning to the lyrics here, they can be understood through the mere moods of the words they sink into you as.

Absu's latest reveals a demon finger through the portal, and, once you are curious/reckless - or both - enough to move a step closer, the hand shoots out and pulls you through. 35 minutes is JUST the right amount of time you want to spend on that other side, which is another little something that makes this record a solid black-thrash delivery that has a sober understanding of its own grit and recklessness.

Rating : 8.8 / 10

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