Symphonic Black Metal – Page 12

Amiensus – Restoration (Review)

Amiensus are from the US and play Progressive Black Metal with plenty of melody and epic feelings.

Keyboards and other effects transform the already pronounced melodic talent of the band to another level, washing over the listener in waves of atmosphere.

Restoration skillfully blends aspects of bands such as Opeth, Agalloch and Dimmu Borgir into a talented melting pot and adds something of its own personality to the mix to avoid sounding derivative; the results of which have led to this pretty special release.

I usually find this genre of music a bit too sickly and derivative, essentially it’s easy to do but hard to do well. Whatever this magic, secret ingredient is that makes an album like this great without sounding like another clone of the aforementioned bands, Amiensus appear to have it in spades.

Meaty guitars cloaked in wistful mood and dripping with ear-candy dominate this release, while angelic vocals croon and soar alongside harsher cries and grunts. Female vocals are used to punctuate the atmosphere when needed and are a great asset to the band.

The album flows easily from one song to the next; the symphonic nature of the band working perfectly to accentuate every harmony and lamentation into a seamless whole until suddenly the 46 minutes playing time has elapsed and you’re left simply wanting more.

As début albums go this is high quality indeed and quite an achievement for such a young band. If album number one is this accomplished I can only imagine what album number two will be like.

Here’s to more in the future. You should get this.

Cosmic Infusion – Cosmic Infusion (Review)

Here we have Indian Symphonic Black Metallers Cosmic Infusion with their first release, a 32 minute journey into the nightside.

From the very first couple of seconds I knew I was going to like this. It instantly has that early/mid-90’s vibe that makes me so nostalgic for the mystery and otherworldliness of Black Metal as I was first discovering its dark charms.

Giving off the same vibes as bands of this era this is instantly familiar and yet fresh and inviting as so few bands do this nowadays, and even if they do they inevitably come across as copycats or merely trying to recapture lost glories. Cosmic Infusion are better than that due to the mass of talent they have and the fact that they’re just so damn good!

Vocals are mainly the standard Black Metal shriek, (done well), but we also occasionally get treated to some heroic-sounding clean vocals which are rousing and welcome.

The music is exceptional – taking the standard 90’s blueprint of mystic guitar riffs and heavy orchestration to create hymns to blackness that really do conjure up images of black masses and Satanic rituals.

This, along with the recent Gutslit album, demonstrates a growing hotbed of talent from India. With these kinds of bands as forerunners the region deserves more recognition for services to Metal.

Cosmic Infusion have crafted an excellent first release that will hopefully prepare them well for their first album at some point in the future. Based on the strength of this EP I’ll be salivating at the prospect.

Get this.