Review: Iapetus – The Body Cosmic

Style: progressive metal, melodic death metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, Opeth, Edge of Sanity, Disillusion
Review by: Sam
Country: US-NY
Release date: 9 November, 2019

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the November 2019 edition of The Progressive Subway. Holy shit my writing was garbage back then.]

Holy fuck this album is good. There. I said it. Now time to spend 90% of my review why it isn’t. OK maybe not that. But seriously, this album puzzled me. And for a long time I just couldn’t figure out why. On one hand this is super grandiose, amazingly produced music with a level of ambition and skill to match that ambition one does not find often in the underground. On the other hand there was something, something I couldn’t articulate. Something that prevented me from slapping a 9 or a 10 on this outright. I tried reading other reviews for critical viewpoints to help me find what was nagging, but they were all praising this album into the stratosphere, so I was left to myself. But, nearly 10 listens into the album I think I’ve found it.

First though, holy fuck this album is good. Iapetus present an amazing take on extreme progressive metal. They take a mixture of melodic death and melodic black metal, sprinkle some Ne Obliviscaris stylings on top in the dynamics (Dan Presland’s on drums here after all) and add a bunch of own flair. The result is, generally speaking, stunning. The songs shrink and swell in intensity in a very natural way that makes you feel like you’re being taken along the waves of Iapetus’ soundscapes. They generally adopt a wall-of-sound approach in that they throw everything at you at once: blast beats, riffs, growls and melodies. As if they said: “sit down and listen and be amazed.” Not that you can do anything else with how massive everything sounds and how soul-tearing the guitar melodies are. There are also the occasional (clean) female vocals that come along. Their delivery is just superb and fits the music super well (see: For Creatures Such as We). It’s a shame they’re only guest vocals. At times I wish they’d be a permanent feature of the band. Despite being sung, I’d argue they have even greater cathartic power than the (regular) harsh vocals.

Hold up. Cathartic. That’s the word I was looking for. It may sound strange and I may be talking out of my arse, but at the same time of being done so well I feel like it’s this band’s greatest weakness. It’s because the music keeps on being cathartic almost the entire time. I’m not sure if it’s really fair to criticize the band for this, but at times I wish they just did more. Extreme prog is, when done right, one of the, if not the most emotionally complete genre out there. When I’m listening to Disillusion’s latest album, for example, the music goes through feelings of sorrow, of joy, of yearning, of bliss, of release, of tension, of fear, etc. It has very epic, soaring parts, it has mellow, relaxing parts, and everything that comes in between. With Iapetus however, everything is done with grandeur and splendor and is just (read in Trump’s voice) HUGE. You get one climactic emotion after another and it just keeps peaking throughout. Even in the quieter sections it’s all just so intense. The emotional variety in the record is just not enough to match the ambition. 

This lack of emotional variety traces back to a couple of musical elements. First of all the vocals, both clean and harsh, opt for the same style over the entire record. The harsh vocals are screamed, loud, powerful and have a distinct lack of different timbres and variety in phrasing. Get in a shriek or a guttural sometime, or go for a weirder approach like Vurtox sometimes does for Disillusion. Anything. And for the clean vocals it’s often the same powerful, soaring singing that feels as if you’re having an hour-long orgasm. I’m missing the soft and gentle parts, and the more casual volume. The instrumentals I’ve already spoken about. They run into the same problems as the vocals. I just kinda wish they did more. Or should I say, less, as some more restraint in parts would have done wonders. Explore some more emotions in more intensities than full throttle. 

Again I should say that I’m not sure if what I’m criticizing this record for is fair (it may just sound like I’m threatening you with a good time). The general sound this band has is brilliant, but it’s just that. They have exactly one sound and stick to that for 70 minutes. And that isn’t always a problem, but when that sound is so limited in the intensity and emotions it displays then it most certainly is. Should they fix this problem then I see this band delivering a performance worth mentioning for an album of the decade nomination, but for now they still have some work to do. Don’t let this review keep you from listening to this band though. Their potential knows no bounds.

PS: I found no space for it in the review, but hot damn that cover art is gorgeous. That’s a work of art right there.

Recommended tracks: I Contain Multitudes, For Creatures Such as We
You may also like: Hands of Despair, Loneshore, Obsidian Tide
Final verdict: 8/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Iapetus is:
– Matthew Cerami (vocals, guitars, bass, arrangements)
– Jordan Navarro (guitars, keyboards, drum arrangements)

With guests:
– Dan Presland (drums)
– Emi Pellegrino (vocals)
– Ethan Navarro (vocals)