Union Jack Prog/Psych Metal pt. 1: Empty Book
The Albion Codex is a British quartet who's playing a mix of progressive metal/rock with epic doom and other different influences. While I liked their debut album, it still has clear flaws that made Summon the Ancient an underwhelming release. Although their compositions have many intricate layers, their compositions are too complicated for their own sake. That's unfortunate but I think that's a fault they can correct for their future releases.
The
five songs are all pretty long, three of them are reaching the nine
minutes mark and even if I'm usually a fan of extended compositions,
I don't think it works here. Mostly because of the way the songs are
composed, the transitions are pretty awful, Mikael Akerfeldt is
really a master composer compared to that. The heavy to soft
progressions are far from natural and in my opinion, they're not
helping the bands. There's simply too many things tried at once and
as newcomers, they don't have the necessary skills to pull it off
nicely. Furthermore, it gave me the impression that the band is
directionless. A good example is actually the first track ''Witch in
the Mist'', the first half is pretty good but when there's the softer
transitions, it fucked up the rhythm That's the case for pretty
much all the record. Being progressive doesn't mean that you can mash
up many different genres together with crazy glue, it's about melting
them to form a solid, condensed and listenable mixture that has
diverse feelings.
The
production is decent while not heavy enough, maybe it's the
atmospheric approach but the band is a doom unit nonetheless and I
expected harder hitting guitars. A bit like countrymen Solstice who
can be epic, doom and atmospheric with ease. It fits the softer side
of the band better than their heavier since I'm not a fan of the
electric guitars tone. The title track is quite fast and almost
remind me of the first two The Sword albums with its stoner vibe.
That's of course before the clean break towards the middle. Believe
me, I like clean and soft music breaks when it's done appropriately
and not forced unto the listeners like pancakes when you ordered
eggs.
Influenced
by Opeth and Porcupine Tree, Paul Wale has a nice clean and melodic
voice similar to Steven Wilson sometimes. They're not quite powerful
but he's also one of the guitarists and it's totally fine for their
sound. I always liked the English accent in my doom metal and it's no
exception. What doesn't work though are the harsh vocals, they're
completely out of place and they seem to be present only to give the
band an edgier sound. While not awful, they're not convincing, not
well written and useless. They're not even often present in the songs
but they're an unnecessary flaw. Hopefully they'll be gone from their
future releases.
Psychedelic,
stoner, epic doom, progressive or acoustic, The Albion Codex managed
to mix interesting genres together but they lack the conviction and
skills to make it truly enjoyable. Instead you get a forty five
minutes album that drags too much. The band still has some cool riffs
and they're talented, I think there's a certain lack of leads though.
I thoroughly enjoyed the six minutes ballad ''Swordwielder'' because
it was entirely soft and has this fun fantasy medieval feel. The band
is good at both doom and atmospheric prog but when it's mixed in the
same song, it's like eating chocolate bacon
Despite
some flaws, I'll await a sophomore since the goods were delivered and
it's a mix of genres I like. I hope they'll have a more condensed and
established personality. I suggest to the fans of the aforementioned
bands to check them out, it might calm your hunger for progressive
whatever doom metal for two or three weeks. Summon the Ancient has a
superb cover and it's showing a band that has a lot of potential,
only the future will tell us if they can make a name for themselves.
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