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Profetus - As All Seasons Die review




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Reviewer:
8.4

35 users:
7.74
Band: Profetus
Album: As All Seasons Die
Release date: June 2014


01. The Rebirth Of Sorrow
02. A Reverie (Midsummer's Dying Throes)
03. Dead Are Our Leaves Of Autumn
04. The Dire Womb Of Winter

Just lie back and feel yourself decay. Gaze helplessly, thoughtlessly, as the preternaturally odious head of Cthulhu crests over the horizon, blotting out the last scarlet gasps of a moribund sunset, looming over the eerily tranquil and temperate ocean like an antediluvian menhir - massive, silent, mysterious, and unspeakable. As the album tumbles funereally along like boulders being rolled along the muddy underbelly of a tepid river, you may feel your atoms slowly deconstructing one particle at a time.

What I've been trying to communicate in an appropriately abstruse way is that As All Seasons Die, in its interminable languor, captures the sound of a dying galaxy gasping for breath. Profetus excel in the field of funeral doom. Their songs, threadbare and haunting, push along at a snail's pace. After a madman-playing-the-organ-in-an-abandoned-church introductory track, "A Reverie (Midsummer's Dying)" commences the torpid carnival of decay with endless, haunting chord progressions, punctuated by unsettling drums and backed by the same madman's organ.

Profetus utilize more vocals than usual on this album, in the forms of bleak growls and subdued monotone droning. This humanizes As All Seasons Die, only heightening the sense of impending collapse and utter despair.

"Dead Are Our Leaves Of Autumn" wrenches itself through seven minutes of misery, woe, and agony, crestfallenly shuffling through crashing chord after crashing chord. Overtop of the blood-chilling destruction, a distraught and heart-wrenching solo cries out in futile agony - perhaps the highlight of the album. Profetus could not have picked a more appropriate name for this album than As All Seasons Die; it reflects the atmosphere of pure, drawn-out death, the bleeding-out of something vast and mysterious as it fades into nothingness with a death rattle of pained riffing and anguished growling.

The wave of Profetus will sweep over you like a cold, suffocating blanket of mournful death. Slow, unfeeling, and haunting, it will overtake you and drain you of life with one monolithic eruption of sound after another. Prepare to die.


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





Written on 17.08.2014 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct.


Comments

Comments: 7   Visited by: 129 users
17.08.2014 - 16:18
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Hmm, surprised to see this review coming from you
Sounds pretty good, I'd been wanting to check this out mainly because of this project's association to Tyranny, and you just made me want to even more.
----
I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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17.08.2014 - 16:36
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by Auntie Sahar on 17.08.2014 at 16:18

Hmm, surprised to see this review coming from you
Sounds pretty good, I'd been wanting to check this out mainly because of this project's association to Tyranny, and you just made me want to even more.


How is Profetus a project? This is still frontman Anssi's main band, who has of course only been a live member of Tyranny for about a year now. And Tyranny's Matti has only been a member of Profetus for about a year now. Btw Proeftus still sounds totally like they have always done since Anssi is still the song writer.

Btw Profetus linked to this review on their facebook page earlier today.
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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17.08.2014 - 16:42
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
ScreamingSteelUS I am surprised you don't mention that the guitar solos in "Dead Are Our Leaves Of Autumn" are played by Justin Hartwig of Mournful Congregation and you can clearly hear that due to his melodic way of playing. And as Anssi told me... Justin played more notes there than Anssi has done on all of Profetus' albums combined
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Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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17.08.2014 - 17:44
Rating: 8
ScreamingSteelUS
Editor-in-Chief
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 17.08.2014 at 16:42

And as Anssi told me... Justin played more notes there than Anssi has done on all of Profetus' albums combined

Sounds about right.... Should have mentioned Justin Hartwig.
----
"Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader

I'm the Agent of Steel.
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17.08.2014 - 19:46
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
I was hoping someone would review this. Agreed on all accounts by the way. Profetus capture that haunting atmosphere unlike almost any other funeral doom band out there, which is a big reason I like their sound as much as I do.

You should review Mourning Dawn's new album next.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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17.08.2014 - 19:59
Rating: 8
Alex F
Slick Dick Rick
Agree with the review 100%. Great album. The last few sentences of your review really sum up the album quite nicely.
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17.08.2014 - 21:42
Rating: 9
Draugen

I agree, really good album. Short but sweet.
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