Review by Daniel for Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris (2000)

The sole album from mysterious Czech Republic progressive/technical death metal outfit Lykathea Aflame seems to be very highly regarded within extreme metal circles these days. I first encountered it back in 2009 & remember finding it to be a very interesting listen but struggling to overcome a few obvious flaws in its make-up & that's still very much the case today. The sheer ambition that's become this album's calling card is remarkable to say that least & Lykathea Aflame deserve a lot of credit for taking the death metal sound to more obscure & unique places than the world was yet to experience. Much like South Carolina tech death legends Nile do with their Egyptian themes, Lykathea Aflame incorporate elements of their homeland's exotic local music scene to great effect with clean vocals making a nice contrast to some very deep, gutteral & monstrous death growls that I find to be one of the highlights of the album. There's an unusual positivity & a noticeably transcendental feel to this material that you won't find anywhere else & it's really up to the listener as to how they handle that as it's very much opposed to your usual grisly death metal atmosphere. I quite like it personally but doubt it'll ever compete for my affections with the darker death metal out there.

The death metal component is very brutal, consistently utilizing light-speed blast-beats similar to those which Flo Mounier has made a name for himself with Cryptopsy, but herein lies the challenge for me personally. You see, the production of the drum kit has significant issues with the kick drums sounding overly clicky, the ride cymbal being way too high in the mix & (most importantly) a very weak & high-pitched snare drum sound that does a great job of emulating a wind-up monkey playing on a tiny drum. Drummer Tomáš Corn does some really interesting stuff during a lot of the album & proves himself to be quite a capable & inventive skinsman in the process but his ability to synchronize his hands & his feet during his blast-beats leaves much to be desired & this combines with the weak drum sound to leave the more intense parts of the album sounding like someone has thrown a typewriter down a steep hill. He really does sacrifice control in the quest for sheer speed & this often leaves his transitions into the blasts sounding pretty jerky too, particularly as he often sounds like he's struggling to keep up with the guitars. As someone who is very fussy when it comes to rhythmic compliance ( I'm a former techno DJ as well as a brutal death metal musician after all), I struggle to cope with blemishes like these but at the same time I find myself captivated by the instrumentation around it, particularly the more creative keyboard & lead guitar melodies.

The rhythmic & production flaws make "Elvenefris" a frustrating record for me overall. It's got so much potential & sounds genuinely different to everything else that was around at the time but it's execution is simply too imperfect to be deserving of the adoration this release consistently draws from so many people these days. It annoys me that Corn's performance seems to be the most commonly praised element of the record too because he's the main thing holding "Elvenefris" up from having a much more significant impact on me. As it stands, this is an inventive & refreshing piece of work that's worth experiencing if you fancy something a little different.

For fans of Appalling Spawn, Nile & !T.O.O.H.!.