Centuries of Decay – Centuries of Decay (Review)

Centuries of Decay are a Canadian extreme metal band and this is their debut album.

This is extreme metal that’s both atmospheric and progressive, borrowing liberally from many extreme metal styles and sub-genres, including modern progressive metal, post-metal, death metal, and black metal.

How to describe this…? Maybe think of a more metallic Between the Buried and Me. Or, I suppose, if you take a base of belligerent metal like Lamb of God, add then in elements of a charismatic and indivuidual band like Gojira…or possibly think of Isis and their post-metal explorations and twin them with Opeth. At other times the band exhibit the intense aggression of Strapping Young Lad, while at others they display Meshuggah-like atypical riffs, or Enslaved’s sense of melody and grandeur…

Probably mixing all of these descriptions and bands together would land you closer to the mark, actually.

As you can probably tell, this is not a one-dimensional album that’s easily described. Each song has its own style and flavour, mixing different styles together with well-deserved contempt for genre restrictions and constraints. Centuries of Decay have crafted a modern extreme metal release that effectively combines these different strains of metal into something all of their own.

The band incorporate their various influences well into the songs, with some of them being on the longer side and all of them showing a proficiency in songwriting that you don’t always find in bands, especially ones that are only releasing their debut album.

Although Centuries of Decay sometimes do wear their influences a little too openly on their sleeves in places, for the most part this is an effective distillation of said influences, with the resulting album a very pleasurable cocktail of extreme metal.

Mixing atmosphere and mood with power and aggression, this is a collection of tracks that should find favour with any that appreciate a modern, non-standard interpretation of heavy music.