Illusions Dead – Celestial Decadence

[nyrating]

9th February 2016 Markus Falkenberg Album Reviews 0

Death Metal and Black Metal have certain beauty that is hard to explain to the uninitiated. Personally, I think it is about the sound carpet and the underlying melody that is only accessible for those who are able to penetrate through the aforementioned sound carpet. Both genres simply require effort to be enjoyed, but the effort can be worth it like in this particular case.

This is even more true for the album at hand as it picks up in strength during its playing time. The first song “Incursion”, for instance, has a certain weird feeling about it in the beginning, a weird feeling that might rise the question as to whether this is just another average album or not. After a while the song picks up in strength though, but before you reach that point you have to face the challenge to get through the beginning of the song. This is just one example for how the album challenges the listener though. Other songs are good from the beginning, but pack so much variety that the listener is challenged again. So no, this album is hardly easy listening, but it is worth the effort that it requires.

And since we are already talking about variety: The singer’s vocal range is huge! Deep growling, high pitched vocals, I really found myself wondering whether this is always the same vocalist, or whether he changed place with one of the other band members without telling anybody. I’m not sure what this means for his vocal cords, but I hope that they can handle the stress, because his variety seems to be crucial for the band’s musical impact!