The clue may be in the band name or the album or track titles, which have to do with higher places. Actually, thanks to the guitarist sending in a nice little bio, and a bit of wider research of my own, I discovered that this band has released two albums and two eps prior to this one, and from the bio it appears that without being pretentious – in fact if anyone is being this, it’s me – the band is on a kind of musical discovery of its own, having worked between power metal, technical and progressive elements, melodic death and now a science fiction feel. It sounds ambitious and certainly intriguing, and I was more than happy to give this a go.

Straightaway we are taken into high powered technically progressive wonderland. No flamboyance is spared. A reassuring rumble of djent cuts underneath it but this is fast, hard and mobile as we progress rapidly and dramatically across the sky on this instrumental journey of adventure. Neatly, we get a little break with the synth waves reminding us we are in space, before we head off again at breath-taking speed. A prolonged roar precedes a pungent passage of progressive death metal. The aura is of Uneven Structure, Fallujah maybe. I became totally absorbed in this. It’s impossible to ignore. Lovers of Tech Fest and the heavier end of ProgPower Europe, step forward and enjoy. There’s even a passage of Finnish style melo thrash in there. But this unrelenting and uncompromising energy and ball of technical adrenaline is all that its title suggests: it is “Violent Equilibrium”. And that’s just for starters.

The whirlwind continues. “The Last Man in Orbit” has a deep synth underscore, and now the technical wizardry is channelled into a pounding but sad atmosphere. When explosions occur, the maelstrom that occurs with the death vocals has a distinct air of Persefone. For some less is more. For Chaos over Cosmos, like Persefone, more is more. Long gone are the days of power metal, save perhaps tinges of emotion. This is about dark, thumping, impactful passages. The synth creates the wind and the waves as the instrumental “Eternal Return” works through another technical solo, but broken up into segments so through switches of tempo and mood, we are kept on our toes. The ringing intro is by now familiar as “Control ZED” takes off in a harsh and pessimistic mood: “Nothing can save you … don’t judge us yet, we still have many opportunities to fuck it up”, goes the lyric. If the world can’t be saved, at least we have this Persefone-style deathly turbulence of uncontrollable technical proportions to enjoy. It came as a great surprise then that “The Sins Between the Stars” starts in a slower, more haunting fashion. Again, the transformation is very effective and the floaty mood captures up that vision of space. Here and there the piece explodes into fire and harshness, but Chaos over Cosmos know how to craft a song like a developing story. Here the atmosphere is like that of post metal, but the technical solo draws us along. As ever there are so many elements, with great clarity, power and drive bonding the song and retaining a lofty position. My only negative thought was that “The Sins Between the Stars” didn’t seem to know how to end. It was the only flat moment on a stellar album.

There’s plenty of chaos and plenty of cosmos to be had here. If this had been an exercise in technical solos alone, then that would have been one thing but “The Silver Lining Between the Stars” is not that. This is an album which is dark in music and lyrics, but uplifts us with its awesome combination of styles and transformations. It’s this combination which takes it away from something which could have been clean-cut and clinical, but instead provides us with something dynamic. The song structures are staged in such a way that Chaos over Cosmos constantly reinvent the fizzing power and the energy, thus keeping us gripped. The technical musicianship is amazing and all in all this is an album that’s well worth listening to.

(9/10 Andrew Doherty)

https://www.facebook.com/chaosovercosmos

https://chaosovercosmos.bandcamp.com/album/the-silver-lining-between-the-stars