Style: Cavernous/Atmospheric Death Metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: Expanding sounds, vast open riffs, huge atmospheres
Thoughts: Death metal used to be my favorite genre. Over time black metal took that throne, and it remains my genre of choice. This shift left me with a lack of death metal in my collection. The acquisition of Concilium's sophomore album is an attempt to correct the balance a bit.
As I've grown older I know what types of death metal I enjoy and what types I pass on. Anything that declares that it is heavy for the sake of heaviness and brutal for the sake of brutality is normally a pass for me. Anything that revolves around slams is almost certainly a no go. These parts of death metal are palatable in small doses, but they are not what I seek out for long term satisfaction.
Sky Bvrial has a different take on death metal. It approaches the genre with a grander sense of atmosphere than many of their contemporaries. The riffs are expansive, and are given an adequate amount of time to grow. By this approach the album begins to take on a more massive form than it would if the riffs were more in line with the rest of the genre.
In some respects, by keeping the riffs in this longer form the music begins to take on a different form of heaviness. Rather than the start/stop, slam you into the ground brutality of many bands, Concilium has allowed the music to let the weight of continents crush the listener instead. With these kinds of riffs the music breathes and has life, it is a vicious killer that slowly stalks its prey and eventually suffocates it a constrictive coil - much like an anaconda would snuff the life out of it's next meal.
Will Concilium make my best of the year list? Probably not, but they do fit into a very specific need that was in my collection. By adding Sky Bvrial to my archives I now have a record I can go to when I feel like being crushed by the momentous weight of a cavern collapsing in on me.
Written September 5th 2023
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