This shall be the sixth album by the German quartet and first on Nuclear Blast. Formed 20 years ago by vocalist and guitarist Steffen Kummerer, the band has always pushed the envelope of technical death metal with progressive tendencies. Returning to the fold after departing the band are bassist Jeroen Paul Thesseling and guitarist Christian Münzner, along with newcomer David Diepold on drums.
The album opens with “Forsaken”, its longest track and a lovely acoustic guitar and bass intro is joined by the drums as the distortion kicks in and twiddly guitar leads begin to litter the landscape, but a mighty growl portends that this isn’t going to be some power-metal epic regardless of the virtuosity of the leads. and when the blasting begins and the growls over the multi-layered instruments are in full swing, all you can do is sit back and listen in wonder.
The following track, “Solaris”, wastes no time in getting up to full speed as the guitars intertwine on their runs up and down the fretboard while Steffen spits out his lyrics at a rate that might leave him breathless before reaching the end of each verse.
Title track “A Valediction” has both rapid and sedate movements, and there appear to be some splash cymbal hits I’m hearing crash in the background through the manic bass runs.
Björn ‘Speed’ Strid provides guest vocals on “When Stars Collide” to give the fast song an added clean vocal harmony and antithesis to the death vocals.
Moving from what could almost be an Obscura ballad to a doomier track, “In Unity” is still filled with incredibly fast runs, but overall it has a slower heavier feel, which even the extreme footwork does not appear to do more than add punctuation to the next movement.
Slowing things down even further is “Devoured Usurper”, where the low guttural roars over the slow steady chugging guitars and constant kick drums are aided by the oppressive riffs and ringing of drawn-out notes.
“The Beyond” had a quick happy resonance to it, as the buzzing guitars always have an airy lead or melody to keep things much lighter in the manic maelstrom, and even the vocals have a lighter edge to their pitch.
The instrumental “Orbital Elements II” requires plenty of repeated listens to get a fraction of what is going on heard each time, and all the leads may seem a little self-indulgent, but is it not that exactly for which an instrumental is written?
I love the way the bass and drums interact on “The Neuromancer”, with the guitars racing along to keep up and giving the vocals a melody to maintain as the kick drum just seems to get faster and faster.
Sounding like very early Kreator, “In Adversity” is pure speed and aggression with raspy rather than low growls, but the leads are completely their own and rather flamboyant.
They end the album with “Heritage” which opens with a beautifully morose acoustic intro that gets obliterated when the guitars and drums come in, but somehow the melody lingers and is still heard as a second guitar that sings through during the slower refrains.
I enjoyed this album thoroughly and it’s easy to get lost in the listening as they combine so many elements with quick little fills and diversions to add to the magic.
(8/10 Marco Gaminara)
Leave a Reply