This is the fourth album by this Belgian quintet, whose name seems awfully familiar, but for some reason they are new to me. Formed 12 years ago, they released their first album in 2011 with the last one released in 2017. The material in this album was written between 2016 and 2019 and the title track is their first with lyrics written in Dutch. The current line-up has recorded their last three albums together, so they are a pretty tight knit unit, and employed Markus Stock to engineer, mix and master the album.
A rather broody bassline is played by Boris Iolis on opener “Scarred”, before Peter Egberghs and Kurt Blommé come in to play their guitars over the top of it, with Arne Vandenhoeck’s nearly whispered clean vocals working perfectly with the bass melody. They eventually crescendo into death growls as the guitars get slightly heavier, while not increasing in pace, at first, but eventually Dennis Lefebvre ups the ante with his time keeping, throwing in some intricate triplets with his feet for good measure.
“The Eye of the End” has a nice chunky guitar riff with a backing melody to accompany it, in much the same way the death and clean vocals complement each other, as do the black metal rasps.
Keeping things slow but heavy is “When All Is Said” which uses tremolo on the guitars to elevate their pace, while not increasing the speed and keeping their doomy quality intact, especially during the lengthy meandering of the song.
Far more upbeat is “The Maelstrom Mute”, with a levity in the vocals which belies the rather morose lyrics being sung, but they work well with the far airier guitars and general mood of the song.
The false harmonic used to punctuate the riff in “Deformed”, becomes the main melody before everything gets heavier at the midpoint of the song with the sombre guitars and slow drums breaking down further to become picked guitars and bass with the occasional tom, before building up once more.
The title track “Einderlicht” is beautifully haunting with its gentle bass buzz under the picked guitar and whispered rasps. But once the distortion pedal is stomped on, the guitars increase in heaviness, forcing the vocals to follow suit by becoming slow growls then blackened rasps of rage, with the guitars mellowing then increasing in intensity for their final push.
While listed as only having 6 tracks on the sleeve, on my digipak I then have 6 minutes and 66 seconds of silence before the moderately paced “Gone” kicks in. The song is heavy, with long drawn out growls flowing effortlessly over the manic kick drums and aggressive guitar riffs, but then there are also clean vocals that accentuate the melody in the same riffs when they are slowed down slightly. A nice allegro way to end the album.
(7/10 Marco Gaminara)
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