Style: Incredibly over the top fantasy metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: Sit upon thine throne oh great conqueror, let me recount you the tales of our ancestors
Thoughts: Bal-Sagoth is entirely unique in all of music. No other band has ever sounded like them, and no other band will. Even Kull which contains most of the members is missing Byron on vocals... it's just not the same. I miss these guys so much.
Atlantis Ascendant is probably one of my least favorites of the band. While the music is still unmistakably Bal-Sagoth its as if the life has been pulled out from them. The light in the music that was there in the past few albums is just missing. It's a paint by numbers version of the band, and it's a damn shame.
All that said this is still an excellent album by most band's standards. The music is well written an executed with precision, the vocals are as bombastic and over the top as always, and the band is at the top of their game when it comes to perfecting the sound that is Bal-Sagoth.
The keyboards are sweeping and epic (with their trademark cheese added in). The guitars match the keys note for note and are locked in an eternal battle between the two for which one is the dominant instrument. The bass and drums back up the two lead instruments like a battalion of the galaxies best solders. This is a fine oiled machine and it shows.
Where the band falters though is in the overall scope of the album. Whereas the previous albums - especially The Power Cosmic - had music that truly gave me pause, this one does not. A spoken passage by Byron, a killer riff, a keyboard line that gave me chills. This album has none of it. It's all lifeless, and almost boring in comparison to the earlier albums.
In a vacuum the album is excellent, but this band has never been content to be ordinary, so the comparisons with the earlier albums is valid. That said, this is still the mighty Bal-Sagoth and even at their worst they are still unique and better equipped to fill my ear holes with joy than many other bands, so the record stays. It simply will not get spun as much as their other albums.
Written May 8th 2024
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