Death is June - FLESHVESSEL :"Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed"

This band's full length finds them as Chicago's death metal answer to Agalloch. It opens with a great deal of symphonic flair, and finds them jamming passages out with violins. This puts them in a very unique position when it comes to death metal. The grandiose outweighs the aggression on the opening track, but they do come snarling back. The vocals go from a blackened sneer to the more resonate growl of death metal. There are three interludes on this album which I am not covering for the purpose of the review and just focusing on the actual songs. 

The second songs finds them getting heavier and while it's an expansive eleven and a half minutes in length. In many ways it feels like they are going for a more atmospheric take on what early Opeth did , but with more jammed out craziness. The prog decadence takes about five minutes to kick in, though even at the songs more gutsy moments they are never digging into the kind of thing that say Cannibal Corpse does. Flutes and whispered poetry start off the more atmospheric path that "the Void Chamber" starts off on. When things build up for the vocals to come in, they arrive like a manic ghost howling into the night Cascades of guitar battling against a piano piece collides under it all. Four minutes in they finally get more aggressive. Then it ebbs back into jazz. 

They close the album with a more death metal minded "Eyes Yet to Open". It does not remain at the in your face hyper aggression normally expected from death metal for long. There are grandiose operatic asides, and a good deal of blasting firing under the buzz of everything. The song floats off into ambiance at the end, before meandering back to life thanks to the pondering synths. Violins chime on this in a more mournful fashion. This album was a unique experience which I appreciate.  I will give it a 9, as the originality and musicality of it puts it above their peers, who are unknown to me at this time. This is being released on I Voidhanger Records.