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Order of Ennead is a Tampa based Black and Death Metal act, but they aren't all that new to the metal world. The band actually came together when Council of the Fallen split up, retaining some of that group's key members, as well as having a legacy of members involved with bands such as Deicide and the newer act Tardy Brothers. An Examination of Being marks the second full-length from the band, and it's a well mixed grab bag of Black and Death Metal excellence that, at times, takes a bit from some of the members other projects to create a solid Metal assault that comes both as intimidating, and, in a sense, classy. It's honestly hard to describe how the album comes off as "classy", but it does. The music on the recording isn't too pollished to the point where it lost it's bite, but still retains the higher production values that many of today's more well known Black Metal acts like Watain and Dimmu Borgir. The music is then mixed nicely with hard hitting Death Metal guitars and the occassional gutteral vocal approach with a tight performance and some often complex sounding guitars that aren't too over the top, such as the quick guitar work that kick starts the song "Lies Upon the Lips of Judas". The only time the music doesn't seem tight on this recording is during the song "This Mortal Journey", as a latter bridge in the song seems to just be off by a second with the drumming, and it does wind up throing things off until that section is done and the song goes right back to how it was prior to it. Aside the more refined sound, the music here isn't all that unique, but it sounds fantastic and often has some real intensity behind it. However, the band does incorporate some fantastic guitar solos through the album that sound more like they belong on a Heavy Metal album then anything, or perhaps a Melodic Death Metal release, but that's pushing it. The song "...In The Mirror" really showcases this nicely, especially with the choruw being a slower, and much more melodic, entry to the fast paced music of the song. Emotionally, the chorus is simple enough to really grab you, and it works well in the end, but ultimately comes off a bit amateurish and simple compared to the rest of the work, especially when the song comes to it's expected slow paced outro then rings out until the end of the track. The band also pulls a move like this on the closing track "A Betrayal of Self", sending the song into a much slower, emotional state with a soft, spoken word segment about half way through. The following track, "An Examination of Being", solidifies that the band is taking plenty of other sources into account in their compositions, as the song features a rather dull sounding breakdown that really doesn't do anything for the song, feeling tacked on for the sake of trying to extend the life of the album. Another drawback to An Examination of Being is that the album starts to get repetitive. There's really nothing all too much different between the tracks, as the songs typically same the kind of structure with very few variances between them. The guitar solos are typically placed at the same point, the verses are basically the same both in place and how many lines of lyrics they have, and even with the music itself it starts to get repetitive thanks to a lack of any real diverse chords. The drumming does have some stellar moments that can cause the album to stand out at times, and the guitar solos definitely keep the album sounding somewhat fresh. The vocals, however, never seem to change. Yes, the band incorporates some gutteral into some of the songs here and there, but for the most part, it's just a high pitched rasp that stays at the same pitch, just differs in intensity, and even that isn't all that different at times. One thing that happens to counter the repetitive nature of the vocals and even their performance is that the recording will have layered vocals in the background, but even those are they same thing through every song of the album, and they appear constantly and, though an impressive performance that works perfectly with the Black Metal aspect of this release, become very boring after a good while. An Examination of Being features some impressive songs, but that only lasts for the first few tracks on the album. After "This Mortal Journey", the album seems to step into a more experimental area of music, with the band incorporating harmonies and melodic moments that clash with the faster paced material presented, as well as bring clean singing and spoken words segments to the mix that clearly are meant to enhance the atmosphere of the track they are added to, but in the end just don't work and sound cheesy and tacked on. While the music Order of Ennead may sound somewhat more refined, all of this and the repetitive nature of the music after time gets to be a bit too much, leaving An Examination of Being as an album that had potential, but simply went unnoticed. |
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