Like I said with my Nailed to Obscurity album review last year, undercard death doom bands have a mountain to climb if they want to retain any sort of relevancy anymore. Ethereal Darkness' debut album, Smoke and Shadows is a mostly pleasant, if a little boring, project that provides no inspiration to a genre that has been fruitful in the last couple of years. Granted, some of my criticisms can be thrown away when you consider when this album was released, but even by those standards, I cannot see this as a good thing. The death doom on display here is predictable and does not do much to separate itself from contemporaries. The standard for this genre has been raised by Fires in the Distance, Red Moon Architect and Aeonian Sorrow of late and I see no attempts to stand out and carve their own path here. Smoke and Shadows feels like the kind of death doom album that you throw on as background noise or as playlist filler. It sounds okay in the moment, but give it anymore of your time and you'll start to regret it.

Best Songs: Forgotten Shadows, The Light That Fades, Time

I like to see death metal grow into different places because it is a genre I sometimes find a bit monotonous and lacking in variety, and I can commend the effort in this record as there are passages I do like and find beautiful and it has a overall melancholic, dare I say gothic vibe that I enjoy. That being said, there is way too much here I don't like at all, so I can pretty much say it is not for me. I find the vocals pretty annoying and the neoclassical influences coupled with the power-metalish composition style give me a very pretentious impression, and a feeling that this is somewhat disconnected from what I feel metal should be. Also, what is up with this clean ass bass? This is the first time a death metal record has a very audible bass and I don't like it. It's also a pretty long endeavor, but fortunately I didn't get tired of it as there is enough variety in interludes and intros and what not.

Well, to summarize, I see this is a classic, but it's a classic in a style I dislike. Can't really see me coming back to this in the near future.

Here's another one that's pretty hard to write something new about. This is nothing short of a perfect old school death metal record: every track has something to say, be it a badass riff, a creative and memorable lead, a stink-face drum groove or some perverse vocal delivery. Production wise, I couldn't ask for anything more. Crystal clear strings with a brutal tone and great vocal mixing. The drum mixing is not really my cup of tea, as I prefer something louder and more impactful, but that doesn't take away any points. Atmosphere is absolutely on point, with a very gorey and dark vibe all around. Actually, I'd say this is one of the most cohesive and conceptually sound death metal records yet for it's release year.

Technicalities apart, what really shines in this release is the composition and the ideas. This has a sort of catchiness to it that I've only seen in Death records, but it sounds way more sinister and brutal in every way. After some few spins, I can recall at least something from every track, even hum along solos, which is something very, very rare for a death metal record. This is what sets it apart to me, the same way Death's Leprosy and At The Gates' Slaughter are set apart: records that are memorable as they are relentless. Not a single drop of brutality traded for poppiness, but still incredibly catchy music nonetheless.

As I said, pretty much every track here is awesome, but I particularly like the first and last tracks, with the last track around 5:00 part being a serious contender for heaviest shit ever, Incarnated Solvent Abuse with some of the best mid tempo death metal I've ever listened to and Carneous Cacoffiny for that groovy stink-face main riff. Awesome stuff I'm pretty sure I'll return to for many years.

This is just Wheel-lite

I did not want to go into this album with dampened expectations. Soen began their musical journey in the mid 2000s out of Stockholm and had a very Opeth-ian sound through their first three albums. After Lykaia however, this band took a more traditional approach and did away with their progressive songwriting, to the point that this album, Reliance, has almost no distinct features that make it sound like early Soen. I think that in some regard, that can be a good thing, because it shows a band not willing to sit still and release the same release endlessly for the rest of time (i.e. Dream Theater). On the contrary, starting off as progressive and leaning into a radio friendly alternative metal is quite the disappointment in relation to musical growth.

And trust me, Reliance is quite lacking in musical growth. I described it as Wheel-lite because all of these sounds and techniques used here are dumbed-down versions of what Wheel was doing on their debut album, Moving Backwards, seven years ago! The album has flow, but it's very monotone; it lacks a truly driving song to balance out all of the piano ballads and medium tempo alternative metal. As a result, the vocals of Joel Ekelöf are painfully lacking as well.

 The instrumentals as a whole are well produced at least. It does make for a mostly enjoyable listen for the forty-three minutes one has to endure. I just wish that there was more done with those instrumental backdrops, since the vocals were so underwhelming. The album lacks a lot of instrumental leads or even solos, which is why "Unbound" is the highlight of the album; it's one of the only tracks that features a technical (but still melodic) guitar solo and even throws in a keyboard solo during the outro. Besides that, nothing inside Reliance ever asks me to come back to it.

And that's why Reliance feels like a homogenous blob. Sure it sounds decent, but how much of it can you point out and truly identify once its finished? The reason my rating isn't any lower is because I see this album/band not as a progressive project anymore. Approaching this album in bad faith as a progressive album will lead you to massive disappointment. And that's okay! It's a lot for audiences to ask these bands to continue being boundary shifters after so many years. But for the love of god, please make something that stands out from the crowd instead of generic radio rock/metal that leaves me feeling more hollow than ever.

Best Songs: Unbound, Primal, Axis

I came to Gojira a little late given that I was well & truly in my electronic dance music hey day when their 2001 debut album "Terra incognita" was released so I didn't end up discovering them until around 2009 when Ben introduced me to the masterful "From Mars To Sirius" which I immediately fell in love with & still regard as a genuine death metal classic today. That awakening would very quickly see me making the effort to explore all of Gojira's other work & there was plenty of quality to get my teeth into too, if not any additional classics to compete with their 2005 pièce de résistance.

"Terra incognita" sees Gojira at their most deathly with their sound being built around a death metal core but still being progressive enough for a progressive death metal tag. There's also a clear groove metal component that ensures that the Frenchmen are kept slightly apart from their peers &, interestingly, I feel that it's this element that sees me being unable to ever really consider a record like this one for my most elite scores, despite the clear talent in the execution. The fairly technical staccato riffs are deadly tight with extreme competence on display in the precision performances & drummer Mario proving himself to already be very competent. I tend to like Joe's vocals more when they veer further towards your classic death grunt rather than a less intimidating groove metal one which is hardly surprising as the extreme metal scene is obviously my comfort zone.

It may not receive the praise that later albums like "The Way Of All Flesh" or "L'enfant sauvage" do but I think "Terra incognita" actually competes very well with them if I'm being honest & it can certainly be mentioned in the same breath as the underrated "Magma" too, although I think I'd probably have it slightly behind all three due to its inability to see me reaching for the classic card with any of the fourteen tracks on offer. Still, it's an underrated & generally overlooked part of the Gojira back catalogue that's well deserving of the attention of our The Horde & The Infinite members.

For fans of Hacride, Trepalium & Decapitated.