March 2025 - Featured Release - The Infinite Edition

Persefone - Aathma (2017)

https://metal.academy/releases/7339

Here's my review summary:

Somewhere in Southern Europe lies a small land between borders, a great distance away from wherever you live but smaller than your country's average state... Andorra! And over there is one group who has taken both eastern philosophy and western-cultural music in a great attempt to let people about Andorra's existence, and that is... melo-deathly progressive metal band Persefone! The band's spiritual philosophy continues from their previous album as they maintain their atmosphere-flavored extreme impact that has kinda put them in rivalry against the Australian Ne Obliviscaris (friendly rivals, of course, Ne Obliviscaris' Tim Charles would perform guest vocals and violin in a special single later), yet there's the slight addition of traditional prog ala Dream Theater. Persefone's previous two albums established their motive of songs ranging one-minute interludes to 10-minute epic. For this album, they've spiced it up with a 4-part 20-minute epic. The esoteric amount of subjects is in strong symmetry with the clean and unclean vocals, plus a small bit of robotic vocals from Cynic vocalist Paul Masvidal. That epic perfectly exemplifies all the band has to offer, plus some vocals by Merethe Soltvedt (best known from a few songs by Two Steps From Hell) and guitars by Øystein Landsverk who recently left Leprous. Any fan of Persefone should get Aathma, and probably start with an earlier album if they're newcomers. It has been Persefone's quest to expand their horizons, and they have a promising path to please the Earth!

4.5/5