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Leviathan (GER) - The Aeons Torn - Beyond The Gates Of Imagination Pt. 2 review



Reviewer:
N/A

7 users:
7.29
Band: Leviathan (GER)
Album: The Aeons Torn - Beyond The Gates Of Imagination Pt. 2
Release date: January 2013


01. The Crescent Moon
02. The Rising Darkness
03. The Sacred Fire
04. The Restless Wind
05. Elysium
06. Towards The Storm
07. When Only Despair Remains
08. Last Laugh At My Existence
09. A Symphony For No Tomorrow

...I felt very let-down last year when this came out, my feelings could be compared to a small-area natural disaster. Weeks before the release date my expectations were up amongst the clouds, after the hours (days?) of listening to the debut over and over again. From a fan's perspective Leviathan (GER)'s second strike is, however, a necessary evil, as I had to realise by now. They are in the process of shifting their style to an amalgamation of their refined melodic death and upbeat progressive/atmospheric/gothic metal, tangled in some sort of concept, which was more or less lacking in Part I.

I know the previous sentence sounds cherishing, but this record has a severe defect. What can be called a band's natural progression musically is castrated here by the rush of producing this, and probably laziness. Literally only 23 minutes and 30 seconds of new material, the last 4 tracks were pulled out exactly the same as they were found on their first ever recording (From The Desolate Inside EP). While those songs were their entry to the metal world, and are really good in their own way, I didn't expect them to be featured later on, especially when they try to break the cycle and create something fresh. Thus creating an album that sounds perfect in many ways, if this is your introduction to them, but those who already know them probably feel like Nick Cage did Face/Off at their birthday party.

I don't intend to say much about the second half of the album; excellent but rather generic melodic death songs, if you're interested find an article about the EP. (In Germany, many magazines voted it record of the month back then.)
The newly composed material sounds organic; they emphasized on the overall composition. Knowing what they produced so far it was weird to hear melodic death songs that are not structured with the same overused frame and don't stand alone, but by about the third recap the new ideas hit me like a grand piano, dropped from the 5th floor. It's an interesting contrast how the past and the future of the band meets on the same disc. Most memorable moments for me are "The Sacred Fire" and "Elysium", but I hope the message gets through that these songs must be listened to in order and all the way through for the real pleasure.

Not much can be said about the sound, it's almost entirely the same as it was before. Changes are only present due to variation in composition that involved wider range of acoustics, more musical parts stripped down from the interwoven orchestration, and clean vocals (which were mixed horribly on 1-2 songs).

I stay humble while pending on what Part III holds...


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 8
Originality: -
Production: 7

Written by qlacs | 30.01.2014




Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.



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