Style: Death / Doom (mixed vocals)
Review by: Will
Country: France
Release date: 11 April, 2022
“II”, French death doom metal band Epitaphe’s simply titled second album, is a triumph of composition and innovation. The band draws from their roots in the French Alps where they were surrounded by the sublime, awesome and often terrifying beauty and power of nature and channelled it into an album that is rooted in tradition and Romanticism while at the same time sounding thoroughly contemporary and innovative.
The band’s Romantic leanings are immediately obvious from the gorgeous album art, created by Petri Ala-Manus. The cover depicts a ferociously wild landscape, devoid of human impact or activity. On one side all is peaceful and calm, under a clear blue sky. To the other side of the frame, however, we see a knotted cluster of ominously dark green trees and, beyond them, the raging glow of a wildfire which fills the air with smoke. In Ala-Manus’ style we can see the influences of Freidrich in the gnarled, bare trees; Turner in the swirling colours and smoke and Böcklin in that ominously dark tangle of trees. The piece speaks to (and stands in awe of) nature’s unrelenting, almost samsaric process of growing, living, dying and regrowing.
The art here is a beautiful reflection of Epitaphe’s music. In the painting, the asymmetry of the composition is unsettling to the viewer, as is the content. In witnessing a wildfire in the distance, the viewer must ask themselves which way the fire is travelling and how fast and hope that the wind doesn’t capriciously shift and send fiery death hurtling in the viewer’s direction. Epitaphe achieves a similar effect musically. Sudden shifts in tempo and volume on tracks such as “Celestial” and “Insignificant”, keep the listener off balance. Intricate acoustic tracks like “Sycamore” and melodic sections throughout the album offer moments of beauty, calm and reassurance. Crushing death/doom riffs on “Melancholia” speak to moments of pure fury, terror and brutality.
Epitaphe, like Ala-Manus, create their own musical landscape and invite the listener inside. It’s an immersive experience where we are drawn into the painting. We are asked to grow plant-like into a world of sublime natural beauty with gentle acoustic opening track “Sycamore” before experiencing thebeauty, wonder, terror, and fury dispersed throughout the next three 20-minute behemonths of tracks. Finally, we enter that universal constant of entropy with the mournful closing track “Merging Within Nothingness”. The world Epitaphe creates almost seems to ask us to consider nature in its own right. To step outside the perception and preconceptions of humanity. To consider the power of a wildfire from the perspective of a tree, or from the fire’s perspective itself.
Just as the album’s artwork harkens to a now age-old artistic movement, Epitaphe also have their music roots very firmly based in the traditions of death metal. There are echoes of Opeth (particularly Still Life) in the melodic sections of all the tracks as well as the beautiful acoustic pieces that comprise the opening and closing tracks of the song (“Sycamore” and “Merging Within Nothingness”). There are riffs that are pure, vintage death metal with nods to the old gods such as Celtic Frost which are deployed suddenly and without warning, often shattering the melodic and acoustic sections prior.
There are a lot of interesting points to this band which keeps their sound modern and even innovative: Epitaphe’s clever incorporation of Synth into many of their tracks, along with lots of reverb on the guitars gives some sections of the album a very post-metal feel, particularly evident on “Merging Within Nothingness” and especially at the end of “Insignificant” which has some real Toundra vibes.
The sound is beautifully mixed to create a very spacious, full sound. Even at times when the guitars use the characteristic Black Metal ‘hollow’ tone with ‘scooped mids’, the bass and synths offer balance and fill out the rest of the tone. The vocals are mixed low, making them yet another instrument in the band’s repertoire – whether they are clean and chant-like, or screams and guttural growls.
Finally, the album structure is pretty interesting with two short songs bookending three 20-minute monster tracks. This could be a nice stylistic nod to the cyclical manner of the natural world. It’s certainly something interesting to experiment with. Would it have been possible for Epitaphe to have broken some of these songs into shorter tracks? Probably. Is it more Prog if they stay as 20-minute sessions? Definitely.
Epitaphe has, in Pink Floyd fashion, created a deeply introspective album that asks us to consider our place in the universe, our relative smallness compared to both the power of nature and universal processes such as gravity, motion and entropy. It’s an album you simply have to press play and experience all in one go and there is little doubt that this beautifully constructed album will be a contender for album of the year.
Recommended tracks: Listen to all of it in order. Then listen again.
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Toundra
You may also like: Hands of Despair, The Fall of Every Season, Izthmi, Fen
Final verdict: 10/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Gurgling Gore – Bandcamp | Website |
Epitaphe is:
– DRZ (bass, additional vocals)
– VLVR (drums)
– LBK (guitars, additional vocals)
– PBFK (vocals)
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