Apoch's Metal Review - Lantlôs: Agape CD Review

Discography	Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed.
Full-Length(s):	Lantlôs (2008) • .Neon (2010) • Agape (2012)
Demo(s):	Îsern Himel - Demo 2005-2007 (2008)

Review

After a highly impressive follow-up to their debut, .Neon really welcomed Lantlôs out of the shadows of the unknown, and made them a more recognizable, acknowledged Black Metal group. Everyone had their opinions of the album, of course, but for the most part it received plenty of positive press. About one year after, Lantlôs returned to the studio to record a follow-up album titled Agape. This release pulls together five new compositions, putting it nearly thirty-five and a half minutes long. But, looking at some of the outcry from the fans of the band, did Lantlôs weave together another super Post-Black Metal offering, or something far, far less impressive?

Well, right away you can easily throw away any Black Metal concepts you may have for this release. Agape is a completely different beast compared to the group's previous works. The audio here is pretty fluid and crisp, but nowhere near overly clean or sterile, at least when the actual Metal riffs kick in. The overall quality is pretty heavy when this happens, which benefits both the Black Metal music, and the material that feels more like a Doom Metal offering with a slightly blackened touch. The guitars can come off a bit bludgeoning with a great bass backing that makes their sound come through rather crushing. The vocals that come into play are actually pretty generic for this sound. There's nothing too impressive behind the somewhat deeper toned Black Metal rasp. The drums here are leveled properly, the snares can be heard in the same manner that the cymbals are, neither drowning each other out, though not really adding much for most of the material when they actually do show up. The bass kicks are very minimal here, which is nice given much of the slower material, and the very faint deeper click works with the bass to try and add to the more blunt sound of the audio.

It's clear from the start that Lantlôs has really picked up more on the Post-Rock sound with the aforementioned Doom approach. "Intrauterin," which clocks in at nearly ten minutes, establishes this well after the guitar distortion fades in and other ambient elements are thrown in, indicating the presence of a keyboard to the mix to try to set an atmosphere. Sadly, tt doesn't really do a good job, and what follows fails miserably as well. The trudging Doom Metal pace is obvious once the instruments finally kick in, and it just feels like a slow building introduction one might expect of bands like Sepultura on stage. There's no sense of gloom, no sense of desperation, no trance-inducing sound or any sort of atmosphere whatsoever that you can take from it to establish what the band intends to do with this release. About four minutes and twenty seconds in, it all ends, does fades out the distortion, and tries to establish a cold, depressive tone with the far lighter material of cleaner guitar chords, though not acoustic, and a very light, catchy drum beat that clearly is meant for you to lay back and be swept up by. The environment here is established a little better, but this passage seems to go on forever, and the clean singing that comes in doesn't help things out either as sometimes it feels a little off-tone with the music, largely thanks to the echo effect, or just really boring. In fact, that's how you'll walk away from this song in the end, even though it ends on a better note with a richer interpretation of the Doom Metal-esque material from earlier.

One of the biggest issues with this album is the transitioning. While the music just isn't that great and coupled with a clearer audio quality instead of a lo-fi, rawer one that would help establish the atmosphere better, it's the constant shifting in music that really leaves the album suffering the most."Intrauterin" isn't even the biggest offender of this, as "Bliss" ushers in plenty of poorly transitioned shifts between Black Metal aggression, "droning" Doom Metal, and then what sounds like Jazz or the kind of music you'd expect in a musical for the days of detectives the like of Dick Tracy. Oh, and there's also some weird sci-fi mono sounding notes that come into play as well that made me feel like I was in an eighties arcade at closing time with the last machine about to be shut off for the night. None of this transitions well to begin with, and given the rather unimpressive music incorporated here, the flow from start to finish is the most jarring you could hope to find. However, the latter of the song, from that aforementioned early crime and arcade atmosphere back into some depressive Black Metal, actually works out and makes for an enjoyable couple minutes before it all just ends in the most abrupt manner that feels more suiting to a Grindcore act performing a five second song.

"Eribo - I Collect the Stars" proves to be a little more out of the way of the Post-Black Metal, and again caters to the Post-Rock sound. Given that this seems to be a bit of a trend following the two songs before hand, it's slower pace becomes understandable. However, once again we're met without that strong an atmosphere to the song, which it clearly is trying to create. The transitions here work out as the song remains consistant instead of trying to force some knee-jerking Progressive Metal concepts into the mix. Sadly, this is far from that impressive a track, and even if you're just looking to kick back with it, there's nothing all that new, refreshing, or interesting being offered, even when it picks up and gets a little edgier towards the end.

Of all the material here, the songs that really shined the most are not only the shorter songs, but the most consistant ones, and those happen to be the lightest tracks that can also be the furthest thing from Metal, and even Post-Rock. "Bloody Lips and Paper Skin" kicks in with a pretty heavy start that feels more like an emotional Post-Black Metal sound should be. There's a decent heaviness to the music that moves at a bit of a slower pace with some wind effects in the background for atmosphere. It does give a bit of a cold vibe to it as the guitars do gradually get a little loudetr as the song progresses forward, nicely transitioning into an actual song in the aforementioned style. It's catchy, feels a bit aggressive, yet still light enough that you can drift away to, all for just under five minutes. What's more, there's "You Feel Like Memories," a Soft Rock-esque inspired track that is consistant from start to finish, though retains no atmosphere whatsoever. The music is enjoyable for being much lighter, and there's no real transitions required during this instrumental. It's also rather soothing, and makes for some good background noise on top of everything considering it's not a track you need to pay close attention to due to a lack of transitions and overall tone.

Agape is easily one of the most unimpressive Lantlôs recordings thus far. The music really isn't all that inspired, and given my time with many of today's Progressive Metalcore bands like Between the Buried and Me, much of the atmospheric ideas here have been done better in that style alone. The transitions are awful, the audio quality is good but the music would have sounded a lot better in a rawer sound given the approach the band went this time around, and what Doom Metal aspects exist here are horrible. Much of Agape is just downright boring, and/or just very hard to get into no matter how you try to approach it. It's sad that the only two actual enjoyable songs are the two furthest from any Metal style, as well as the shortest. The latter isn't too surprising though as the three longer tracks, especially "Eribo - I Collect the Stars," just feel dragged out beyond the point of caring. While Lantlôs is a very talented group, they simply don't show it here with some of the most generic, boring, and poorly executed Post-Rock and Post-Black Metal material they could possibly churn out.

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	Digital review copy of this release provided by: Prophecy Records.

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