This seven track ep is the debut release from The Arisen who hail from France. If I were to pin down a single word to describe “Rising Times”, based on my first listen, it would be “difficult”. That can be a good sign of course, as this suggests that there’s more to explore and appreciate than the average.
I can’t say that I found it got any easier. Heavily progressive in nature, “Theatre of Vampire” starts in a grey death metal style reminiscent of something between Ephel Duath, Textures and Architects and then moves off tangentially into the land of technicality and putrid despair. “Exodus” plums further grisly depths but again with a multi-coloured drum pattern, technical guitar virtuosity and irregular movement which seemed to have neither purpose nor direction. A decent solo almost saves the day but “Exodus” just bashes on in its remorseless and inexplicable fashion. That seemingly is the way of this work. The death vocals go with this anarchic structure but a low point was reached when the vocalist intervenes imploringly on “Mnemesis” with what may be clean vocals but frankly are just unpleasant. From nowhere there’s an Arabic sounding section and this leads us into the short, but exotic, intriguing and distorted “Winds of Mesopotamia”. This is the prelude for the brutal death metal “Halfway from the Sun”. There are plenty of technical flourishes and it has a driving quality but the chorus line is poorly delivered and in spite of its flamboyance, I couldn’t find any excitement in it. There’s a very progressive type of break and movement but its harsh and technical pattern make it unfathomable and inaccessible. “Massive Thievery” continues in the same vein and includes another awful vocal section. It has energy, I suppose, but I was glad when it finished. There is a bonus track “Apocalyptic Madness” which goes part of the way to summing all this up. This one is like several tracks rolled into one, parading its way irregularly through its death metal course. It switched around too much for my liking, but that was my hang-up for the whole of this ep, but I do recognise that this track in particular has a certain vibrancy and energy.
For me, there was too much conflict of sound and lack of apparent purpose here other than to convey a kind of progressively technical brutal mess. “Rising Times” simply did nothing for me, I’m afraid.
(4/10 Andrew Doherty)
https://www.facebook.com/TheArisenBand
Leave a Reply