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Solid music, but far from inspiring.-
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| Sylosis: Edge of the Earth |
Melodic Death Metal, Thrash Metal
Nuclear Blast Records
April 19th, 2011
- Procession - 6:45
- Sands of Time - 5:07
- Empyreal - 4:52
- Empyreal (Part 2) - 1:07
- A Serpents Tongue - 5:23
- Awakening - 3:59
- Kingdom of Solitude - 5:37
- Where the Sky Ends - 3:56
- Dystopia - 5:44
- Apparitions - 7:15
- Altered States of Consciousness - 5:31
- Beyond the Resurrected - 5:10
- Eclipsed - 4:46
- From the Edge of the Earth - 7:38
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| Links |
| Review Information |
Release length: 1:12:50
Review posted on April 16th, 2011
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| | Overall Score: 7.5/10 |
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| Discography |
Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed. |
| Full-Length(s): |
Conclusion of an Age (2008) • Edge of the Earth (2011)
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| EP(s): |
Casting the Shadows (2006) • The Supreme Oppressor (2007)
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| Review |
When I see an album with a questionably large amount of tracks, and an album length that goes past sixty minutes, especially the seventy minute mark, immediately I begin to cringe, worry, and want to get that release reviewed and out of the way as soon as possible. Sylosis had shown signs of this with their previous effort, Conclusions of an Age, which was roughly an hour long, and didn't necessarily meet with the warmest of criticism from the press. Edge of the Earth finds the band expanding both the tracks and length of the recording to nearly seventy three minutes of Melodic Death Metal and Thrash Metal (longer if you obtain the iTunes version as it includes a bonus track for just under five minutes of additional Metal), and follows their debut by three years. All signs are immediately pointing towards Edge of the Earth being an album to be greatly weary about. So, how does this monster of a release stack up?
Well, Edge of the Earth doesn't quite live up to that fear, but it's far from a masterpiece. The albnum starts off with "Procession", a more mid-tempo Melodic Death Metal track with some Thrash inputs, and it's nothing all that special, but has a decent amount of aggression to it. There's no real atmosphere to the song like some other tracks have, and about half way through the song it starts to feel a little drawn out. This track gives way after nearly seven minutes to "Sands of Time", which is another song that nicely blends Melodic Death Metal and Thrash together, and it constantly jumps around from the styles. However, it's not until "Empyreal" that the album starts to take hold of the listener by showing off it's more impressive elements when the music really picks up and feels a little more technical and aggressive then the slower moments that don't quite set up that great an atmosphere beyond the heavily hook-driven chorus with harmonized gutterals and rhaspy vocals. The song is far from bad, and in fact becomes one of the stronger tracks to the recording, being both catchy and rather intense, leaving the listener satisfied by the end of the song instead of sitting there wondering when the track will end like "Procession" did. There also seems to be some keyboard sound effects in the background of the song at times, but you really need to pay attention to the song in order to pick up on them half the time as they are heavily masked by the music, and never really seem to appear again in the album.
While this album gets off to a rocky start and comes off a bit generic with "Procession" and "Sands of Time", there really is a decent amount of heavy, punishing tracks on here that stand out like "Empyreal", but not necessarily for the same reasons. "Awakening", for example, is another more mid-paced track that doesn't really offer much in the line of unique music, but the shorter track length works for the song, it boasts a decent amount of changes to the music through the song, and has a heavy, burdening atmosphere through much of the recording that feels coupled almost with a Progressive state of mind through aggressive music and vocals mixed with some lighter, drum driven elements that feature some decent clean singing that sometimes it accompanies by the harsher vocals, all of which adds a nice haunting vibe to the album that often really only shows through well in some Melodic or Symphonic Black Metal bands such as Emperor, just sans the keyboards of course. This also winds up being proven through the atmospheric guitar work and slower pace of the song "Dystopia", another stand out track for the release that manages to nicely distance itself from many of the other songs on the recording because of the general vibe the song gibes off, being a heavy but generally nostalgic or reminiscing atmosphere to the song that feels full of sorrow and remorse. Of course, "From the Edge of the Earth" sounds like the band tries to set a much stronger atmosphere like the type that sometimes follows a guitar solo, though still falling prey to that issue around the half way mark, and it ultimately blows up in their face as the song feels weak, commercialized, and all around just not that interesting at all, leaving the closing of Edge of the Earth to feel rather uninspiring and a huge let down.
There is one rather dramatic flaw to Edge of the Earth, however, which is the guitar solo. While the solo used in the various tracks are often fantastic, most of the time it feels that this is where the music becomes more atmospheric and passionate, and it's frustrating since there are plenty of tracks here that clearly try to build up that atmosphere, but the band really seems to not only set it up for the solo, but they only choose to push it the most during that time. Songs like "Awakening" and "Dystopia" would have greatly prospered from the music being as atmospheric as the more emotive music that backs up the also emotional guitar solos that are generally slower and become an extension to the pushed atmosphere to those short sections. Aside that, some of the songs just aren't as strong as they could be, feel drawn out, or just generally aren't anything too specialmuch like "Procession" and "Beyond the Resurrected". Some even seem a little repetitive from material that appears earlier on in the album as you progress towards the later tracks. The jumping around in speeds isn't very consistant, and that becomes a huge issue for the songs and their retaining a more unique atmosphere to themselves, like "Altered States of Consciousness" which sounds like "Dystopia" and even "Procession" at times, and "A Serpents Tongue" showing shades of "Empyreal" without the more atmospheric elements that carry over into "Empyreal (Part 2)". These songs aren't bad, but they just don't feel as unique as they could, or should be.
When all is said and done, and you make it through Edge of the Earth the first time, it becomes clear that the band presents a decent amount of solid material here to actually make it well worth taking notice of. However, there's no denying the existence of some filler material, and tracks that generally feel like the band came up with a concept for the release, but tried to expand that concept out too far with the release, causing Edge of the Earth to come up a little too thin at times. Sylosis did a spectacular job with some of the songs, and much of the album will have you coming back for more for a while thanks to it's compositions of well orchestrated and executed Melodic Death Metal, but due to many flaws including sporadic jumping between the Melodic Death Metal and Thrash influences and the drawing out of track lengths, including a lack of genuinely awe-inspiring material beyond being just well done music that stands firm for the styles it represents, it's far from a truly unique experience, though not lackluster enough to be washed away in the sea of similar bands.
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Digital review copy of this release provided by:
Nuclear Blast Records.
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