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1. Clandestine Stars
2. Emergent Evolution
3. Diluvium
4. Mortification Of The Vulgar Sun
5. Ethereal Skies
6. Convergence
7. Ekpyrosis
8. The Seventh Aeon
9. The Conjuration
10. An Epilogue To Infinity
11. A Last Farewell

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2016’s Akróasis was a good album, but something was missing. It seemed unfocused, like the band were taking for granted the wheel they reinvented with 2009’s Cosmogenesis and 2011’s Omnivium.

As the final piece to a massive four-album concept, Diluvium – which refers to an oceanic flood – bursts out like air from the lungs of someone breaking the surface after panicky underwater submergence.

Clandestine Stars sounds like Obscura playing for their lives; the crisp, staccato guitars and fretless bass lurch are embraced by erudite blasts and Steffen Kummerer’s gravitation between death metal harshness and vocoder kitsch.

Over the next 10 tracks, Diluvium hardly lets up, but never devolves into a rudimental display. The epic sprawl of The Conjuration, the downcast An Epilogue To Infinity and Emergent Evolution’s precision bubble with aggression and technique, but more importantly possess ear-hook choruses, pointed riffs, infectious harmonic layers and exceptionally phrased leads.

Luke Morton joined Metal Hammer as Online Editor in 2014, having previously worked as News Editor at popular (but now sadly defunct) alternative lifestyle magazine, Front. As well as helming the Metal Hammer website for the four years that followed, Luke also helped relaunch the Metal Hammer podcast in early 2018, producing, scripting and presenting the relaunched show during its early days. He also wrote regular features for the magazine, including a 2018 cover feature for his very favourite band in the world, Slipknot, discussing their turbulent 2008 album, All Hope Is Gone.