These guys throw a whirl wind at you . Melodic melodies manage to break out of the blasting tornado of black metal anger, while stringing together some pretty majestic sections. They break out clean guitar tones before the end of the first song, which means they do not give a fuck about having to stay within the bounds of conventional black metal. Its hard to believe these guys are American. The second song goes on a more typical black metal gallops , its the good grooving chug to "Tales Told In Oblivion" that is more impressive. The folk metal elements go off in the background at times making me think that I have another window open on my computer that I am not aware of. So far they also get props for keeping their songs under the eight minute mark, which is even more impressive considering how much they are throwing at you.
"Santeria" doesn't sound like there is anything Spanish or Caribbean about it. It is also a blazing instrumental and as impressive as that might be instrumental metal doesn't do much for me. By the time they blast into "The Everlasting" that kind of attack is beginning to find its fangs dulling. The dry rasp comes in. The lyrics get a little lost in delivery, there is something about stars up in the sky and sorrow. Speaking of sorrow they are starting to make me think of them as a cracked out version of Moonsorrow. The song that follows seems kind of upbeat. The understated melody is soon washed away by the flood of double bass . Despite some of the brighter tones in the chord progression the vocals seem more wretched. Its not just these guys , but many bands of this ilk when they start going blazing fast they tend to lose some of the heaviness.
"Outer Darkness" should be darker shouldn't it? Well it is marginally. The vocals go into a lower roar. Midway through it goes into an interesting break that comes out sounding like nothing else so far on this album, almost like Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum in its weirdness. If you like prog metal , but still miss the days when Enslaved didn't sound like Opeth then this album might be up your alley.I'll give it an 8.5 as they do capture some original sounds and aren't totally biting any ones nuts off.
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