Right off the bat the album does not sound anything like death metal in any form. It's more like a black metal intro, with brooding guitars, ominous spoken/sung vocals, and a slow build up that is more atmospheric than anything I've ever heard out of the aforementioned genres. I wondered if I had the right album at first... then the first real song starts.
The atmospheric elements are quickly dropped for a semi-technical opening riff that is undoubtedly brutal death metal. As the song continues it slows down... and it slams... it slams hard. What I initially thought were the gutturals ended up being the mid's of the album... during the first real slam... now those are the gutturals.
The album continues to surprise me though... after that first slam the atmospheric elements return. The distortion is gone from the guitars and a much deeper and richer clean guitar tone is adopted. Semi-dissonant chords are played as the song builds into it's second phase. This again is undeniably death metal but its much more complex and has more in common with dissonant bands than a brutal slam band.
To say that the surprises end there is not true... these songs are long... very long. Three of the nine tracks are over 10 minutes in length. While the slam is present in each of them its counter balanced by the more interesting dissonant and and atmospheric parts...
The slam is just a part of the overall sound that Nekroi Theoi bring to the table, I find myself drawn in by their constant twists and turns. I wasn't sure what I thought of this at first but after a few listens... damn this is pretty good. There are so many things going on here, but nothing sounds out of place...you never know where these guys will end up after they start a new song. In short this is a fascinating album.
No comments:
Post a Comment