Allegaeon – Proponent For Sentience

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21st September 2016 Reinier de Vries Album Reviews 0

The biggest difference with their latest album “Elements Of the Infinite” are the use of more accoustic guitar parts, especially the flamenco parts. On top of that there are more classical influences and of course the new vocalist Riley Mc Shane. He growls, shouts and screams like he has been in the band for years. The technical melodic death metal with touches of black metal and progressive parts is a feast for the ears. The guitar riffs are very thrashy and don’t bore for any second.

The complex songs played on high speed are accompanied by orchestral sounds and fast flamenco guitars in the song ‘Grey Matter Mechanics – Appassonata Ex Machinea’. In ‘Tarrathaw and the Quake’ you hear a female choir in the background and in ‘Proponent for Sentience III – The Extermination’ guests like Bjorn ‘Speed’ Strid (Soilwork) and guitarist Benjamin Ellis (Scar Symmetry) help out. With their version of the Rush song ‘Subdivisions’ the band shows that they have taken a next step to a higher level. It isn’t easy to pick a favorite track because they are all great. The songs are rather complex and have a lot of variety. I think that there will be quite a lot that will put this album on their best of the year list. Spin after spin it gets better and with every spin you hear some new elements and sounds. Several times the music made me think of Fleshgod Apocalypse, due to the orchestral and classic elements.

I think this is their best album so far! Really worth checking out!

Tracklist:

01. Proponent For Sentience I – The Conception 6:24
02. All Hail Science 3:24
03. From Nothing 5:00
04. Grey Matter Mechanics – Appassonata Ex Machinea 8:18
05. Of Mind and Matrix 5:33
06. Proponent For Sentience II – The Algorithm 8:19
07. Demons of an Intricate Design 4:25
08. Terrathaw and the Quake 6:10
09. Cognitive Computations 5:58
10. The Arbiters 6:11
11. Proponent For Sentience III – The Extermination 6:59
12. Subdivisions 5:25

Playing time: 72:00

Release date: 23 September 2016

Label: Metal Blade Records

Website: www.facebook.com/allegaeon

About Reinier de Vries 188 Articles

Once a metal head, always a metalhead. My parents thought it would only be a period, but they were wrong. I quit to explain the beauty of metal music to others that are not into metal, because it is something you can't tell in words... It is like explaining to a teetotaller why a cold beer is so nice on a hot day... I started with bands like Accept, Metal Church, Iron Maiden and Metallica in the eighties and I think I will still listen to them when I'm stone deaf and old...