At one point, the music may almost be purely progressive metal, when all of the sudden there’s an easy-to-follow chorus, and then some strings and woodwinds may create a symphonic interlude, like on Ddulden Flies to His Fate. Especially in these interludes, the album feels like a movie soundtrack, and the band aptly paints the picture of the story they’re telling. Despite the odd time signatures, the syncopated rhythms, and the raw guitars, the music in general is pretty laid-back... In conclusion, Ddulden’s Last Flight is an intriguing record on which Grorr have skillfully mixed progressive metal/rock with symphonic soundscaping. Whereas sometimes the traditional instruments stay in the background and accompany the bass, guitars, and drums, on other tracks it’s the other way around.Read the full review by Rutger at metalutopia.com
Ignoring the conventional wisdom of leaving your longest song until the end, the band throws you in at the deep end with the epic fourteen-minute ‘Katana – The Moths and the Dragonflies/Katana – Mud’. Portentous horns are quickly followed by huge riffs and pounding drums, spoken word passages, and sensational guitar solos. Far Eastern melodies are backed by guttural roars, black metal shrieks and quasi-operatic vocals as the hugely ambitious opener sounds like Blind Guardian and Nevermore spent five years in Japan with Sigh as their tour guide.Read the full review by Gary Alcock at ghostcultmag.com
Their sound is an interesting one, not changing a great deal over the course of the album, but bringing in influences from the progressive, alternative and even post- spectrums of heavy music, all to create something palpably atmospheric. Modern efforts from Katatonia and Anathema are the most immediate comparisons to leap to mind, or even Swallow the Sun during some of the heavier sections. It bears that same vaguely mournful quality, with just enough hints of something more stirring. Everything is wrapped up in a swirling, ethereal coating, like an ominous mist, gradually revealing more as the album is explored, and with occasional bursts of something brighter or heavier to puncture the gloomy malaise.Read the full review by Kieron Hayes at theindependentvoice.org
...this is actually an exercise in delicate beauty and a highly mellow listening experience. From the neo-classical opening bars of strings and woodwind on opener ‘The Fall’ it is quickly established that this is going to be a gentle and even quite pastoral journey. Julia’s vocals are far from over the top and accompany the music in a calming fashion that gives it all a bit of a fairy-tale icing. Don’t worry too much about musical overdose of sugary sweetness either, everything strikes as natural and Julia’s tones are what I can only describe as elfin and soothing whether she is softly singing or as in a couple of these tracks seductively whispering.Read the full review by Pete Woods at avenoctum.com
As a starting point, you could say we’re in Lacuna Coil territory with this debut, crammed full of down-tuned, chunky guitars and driving rhythms, but as the album progresses there are touches of Nemesea, Within Temptation, Delain and Lullacry. However, vocal power-house Tina Gunnarsson marks the band apart – whatever the song demands she absolutely nails. Powerful, passionate, melodic and diverse, her vocals certainly give the whole thing an added vitality – the choruses shine, the verses hold your attention every time – it’s a spellbinding display.Read the full review by Andy Barker at avenoctum.com
As a starting point, you could say we’re in Lacuna Coil territory with this debut, crammed full of down-tuned, chunky guitars and driving rhythms, but as the album progresses there are touches of Nemesea, Within Temptation, Delain and Lullacry. However, vocal power-house Tina Gunnarsson marks the band apart – whatever the song demands she absolutely nails. Powerful, passionate, melodic and diverse, her vocals certainly give the whole thing an added vitality – the choruses shine, the verses hold your attention every time – it’s a spellbinding display.Read the full review by Andy Barker at avenoctum.com
An album may be more than the sum of its parts, but especially in the case of music, the individual parts hold their own not insignificant place in the larger discussion as well. In regards to Sigma, these aforementioned parts are a set of progressive metal tracks that have a heavy emphasis on a grove-like tone that drones in a number of evocative ways, with a conceptual feel to many of them. Songs like “Collision” and the single “Shine” do a good job of delivering a clear drive and throughline to the music, whereas the lengthier ones (such as “Silence” and “Spiral”) highlight the more progressive aspects to Mother of Millions‘ sound.Read the full review by Tyler Caldas at itdjents.com
The intention here is blatantly obvious: to throw everything, including several kitchen sinks, at this album and create an opus of gargantuan proportions. Aathma is an hour plus of mindbending and bombastic progressive death metal, with lashings of soaring melody, proggy and symphonic stylings, high-level musicianship, atmospheric moments (Vacuum is quite beautiful) and whatever else the band could think of at the time. They even channel Cynic during Living Waves. All culminating in the title track, which is a twenty minute, multi-suite epic, rounding out the album.Read the full review by Rod Whitfield at metalobsession.net
Persefone combine aspects of symphonic, progressive and death metal to create their diverse style, and it totally works for them. They play complicated riffs fast enough to give Lamb of God a run for their money, meaty math-core breakdowns that one might associate with Ion Dissonance, but far more diversified in sound than either of those bands. Think Dream Theater around their Octavarium era (I’m particularly thinking ‘Panic Attack’) but somewhat heavier and using death-metal style vocals alongside clean.
The songs segue really well into each other, so the experience of listening to the album never feels disjointed; the music takes you on a journey through turbulence, into melody and harmonies without skipping a beat [Please, pardon the awful pun]. There’s a definite strength in this unity, as there’s clearly been a lot of effort put into these links – the album completely feels like it was meant to fit together, so listening to it as a whole is a rewarding experience. The ‘Outro’ track ties everything off nicely; it’s a very calm track, dissipating the energy of the preceding songs, and bringing the album to a close.
Read the full review by Matthew Brady at metalmouth.net