As concepts for albums go, this French death metal combo’s second offering is an interesting one.
Created in conjunction with the writing of a fantasy novella, each of its tracks have been written to correspond with a chapter of the said tale of mythical, Egyptian-like worlds, heroes, and monsters.
It’s a novel idea and the Arabic instrumental introduction of opener Among The Ashes, along with the oriental moments and flourishes, certainly sets the scene well. The problem is that, as interesting as these mystical flavours are, what you’re left with is a fairly generic mix of death-cum-deathcore moments that never do enough to fully grab the attention or indeed bludgeon that attention in to you. Some great work during standout track The Ritual: Soil Of The Crawling Chaos aside, Nicolas Gandolphe’s vocals are ineffectual, especially during moments of unnecessary pig squealing. It’s unfortunate, but the end product here never quite manages to live up to its lofty promise.
