This is the eighth album by French death metal band Gorod.
After their very strong 2023 album The Orb, the return of Gorod is to be celebrated. The Ember Gone delivers 44 minutes of the band’s charismatic take on progressive and technical death metal, yet with a different spin. This time, the music places a much greater emphasis on the band’s progressive side.
Much like the mighty Psycroptic, Gorod use technicality as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Gorod have their own flair for this though, and have heavily infused The Ember Gone in particular with progressive character. This is not a repeat of The Orb. These new songs are full of exploratory depth, expressive worldbuilding, and intricate workouts.
Unlike some of Gorod’s work, these songs place progressive metal at the top of the musical pecking order. This is backed up by technical ability and melodic drive, with death metal in any traditional sense working to distantly underpin the rest of the music’s ambitions, (of which it has many). The tech death is there, but this is a progressive beast more than anything. Much of this record would sit comfortably alongside the progressive offerings of bands like Dvne, Gojira, Mastodon, The Ocean, and Opeth, for example.
This change in approach results in songs that are on the longer side, range widely within their chosen framework, use clean vocals frequently, and have an experimental edge showing for different ideas to be tried out. It also means that The Ember Gone is best appreciated over time.
Boasting no small amount of atmosphere and a larger helping of emotion than anything tech death-related usually manages, The Ember Gone holds the listener’s attention due to its sheer quality. The music is melodic and precise, with many mood-focused components. It’s highly textured, infused with rich feeling, and is remarkably well-realised.
The Ember Gone is essentially a contemporary progressive metal album bolstered in places by deathly might, written by a band with a strong idea of what they want to achieve. Gorod have the skills and knowledge to do this successfully, and The Ember Gone is worth every minute of its running time.
For fans of modern progressive metal, this is an essential listen.
Wonderbox Metal 