I was hooked in here by a simple claim from the PR that this was an album that would appeal to fans of Ved Buens Ende, Arcturus, Fleurety, Dødheimsgard & Virus. Well, that’s my domain for sure and even if the name of the band seemed incredibly familiar it appears I could not particularly place the Catalonian outfit so kind of went in blind. As it turns out Volume 1 of the series ‘The Love Album’ had been covered by another writer and to say he did not ‘love’ it would be a bit of an understatement.

Luckily I had already made up my mind here before reading that particular review and my ears had pricked up on the first epic track ‘Falling Apart’ due to its somewhat avant-garde bass work and juddering chaotic plunge into the territories that certainly might be invoked by some of the aforementioned outfits. There are elements of quite a few subgenres here from djent to progressive metal as well as folk due to addition of violin and cello over the course of the journey. Vocalist NHT (Oscar Martín) also impresses with coarse growls and the move into cleans that certainly bring a bit of that VBE magic to the table. I also appreciate the way the long number starts off in pandemonium and dissolves finally to dreamy outro. If the album had continued in this vein, I expect I would have liked it more but it rather starts to lose its way.

Fair enough that there is evidently a story at its heart but breaking things up with narration and indeed a cough from what sounds like a someone narrating Lovecraft in a foreign language on ‘Celephaïs’ somewhat lost me. There’s another track towards the end here which also tells a tale, this time in English but, this and other shorter numbers of ethereal folk and strings really broke up the flow of the main songs. More a case of progressive folk with growls ‘La ascensión’ is certainly flamboyant but lacks the more experimental nature of the opener. Similarly, ‘The Green’ and ‘From The Scratch’ to me would probably go down better with fans of recent In The Woods and Green Carnation. It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong but more a case of somewhat unexpected items in the baggage area. The conclusion of the album ‘To Finish’ is also a lengthy one but here there is a sparkle mainly due to vocals from Cristina R. Galvan which brighten things until the main vocalist growls back in. I found his parts seemingly overstated and coarse here and frankly would have enjoyed the song a lot more without them.

Clearly there are plenty of ideas here, perhaps if I had a month of Sundays this may have made a little bit more sense but the sporadic nature of it all left me a bit lost or indeed looking at the cover art, all at sea. I would say that perhaps fans of progressive metal might enjoy this more but back to the previous album review that too might not be the case either. Still I’m sure someone will like the eccentricities of As Light Dies.

(6.5/10 Pete Woods)

https://www.facebook.com/aslightdies

https://aslightdies.bandcamp.com/album/the-laniakea-architecture-vol-ii