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Since forming in 1993, Setherial has gone through a good amount of line-up changes over the course of their five full-length releases. Ekpyrosis marks the band's sixth full-length, and despite these changes, it's clear that it hasn't dramatically affected the band's performance. While in this day and age, Setherial's more recent releases weren't all too inspiring or well received by most of their fans, this album finds the band continuing to mix things up with their sound, but having a chaotic movements with random, often tacked on somber sounding moments to their passages. This, of course, leads to some interesting songs, but ultimately an intense, solid effort. When it all comes down to it, the only problem that this album seems to have is the somewhat abrupt shifting of music here and there. Take the opening track "A World in Hell" as he example. The song hits hard with menacing technical drumming that sometimes borders on the third generation Black Metal concept of utilizing blast beats as much as possible, but just doesn't quite reach there and features much more diversity while still retaining the exact type of edge. This is great and makes for a menacing song, but almost out of nowhere, the song goes from being chaotic, to a much slower, almost melancholic Black Metal section that simply feels tacked on, perhaps to drag the song out. It's moments like these on the album that seem to appear for no reason and hold things back a bit simply because the transition between the two sections, going in and coming out, simply isn't there. Luckily this only really hits during that first track, and the other times this comes into play does have decent transitions. Ekpyrosis is also pretty far from an original band at this point. There is an obvious influence ranging from band like Dissection in the music as the basic foundation, but there's also the random keyboards that often cause the band to tread into a symphonic Black Metal field reminiscent of acts like Dimmu Borgir with how over the top they sometimes feel at given parts of the songs, such as during key moments of "The Devouring Eye", and even with the way the guitars and handled causing it to stand out moreso on the album then other tracks. Of course, you could also argue that there is a strong Emperor presence here as well, which does appear thanks to these same keyboards offering more to the melancholic sound of some tracks, as the keyboards are not always too over-the-top due to placement on the release. Aside all of that, the album is still a solid effort full of hard hitting songs that will have you hooked, but not from the start obviously. The main allure of the album would be the heavier, faster paced tracks, as they really present more bang for the buck with the listener. The title track "Ekpyrosis" is one of the better tracks off the album thanks to it's more complex musicianship and intensity that will get the listener's blood boiling. However, there's a strong focus from the band on songs that are written with a good amount of intensity as well, mostly through the drumming, but seem to struggled along thanks to some simpler, slower paced guitars to create a more somber atmosphere to the recording, and many of these make up the latter half of the album. These songs are alright for what they are, but amount available here starts to become as irritating as the somewhat repetitive nature of that atmosphere and sound. "Subsequent Emiussions from a Frozen Galaxy" is a slower song, and is enjoyable for what it is, but there are many similarities between that song and the following track "Thoughts of Life They Wither" that will leave the listener a bit heartbroken. The faster section towards the end of the song does wind up making up for some of it, and it really does just hammer away at the listener with pure Black Metal rage and anger, showing that the band can take a slower paced song and just build on it to make it stand out of the crowd, but unfortunately not by much. This track is yet another song that features some pretty abrupt tempo changes, but this time the transition comes in the form of dead air for a few moments before you get thrown into a different pace. In the long run, Ekpyrosis is a strong album, but not one of the band's best. The music presented here hits pretty hard at times, but the slower material here can often grow repetitive, and some of the songs just aren't even that great in the first place. Setherial clearly has a good idea, but they just still need time to perfect things, and hopefully by their next album they will, as Ekpyrosis does show some great talent and promise. While this isn't a rush out and buy release, it's still an entertaining album you'll get some replay value with that is worth looking into, even for the die hard fans not too pleased about the odd shift of the performance. The slower songs may wind up holding the album back, but the heavier, faster tracks are full of intensity, anger, and an energetic performance that are just too good to pass up. |
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