Style: progressive black metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Enslaved
Country: Various states, US
Release date: 28 April 2024
The art of the double album isn’t something many bands can stick the landing on. When you say “double album” it either means an 80+ minute contemplation on a central theme or you had so much music you just wanted to release it all. The Ocean needed a duology to tell us of the rise and fall of all life on Earth TWICE over, and Roger Waters needed all 80 minutes of The Wall to tell us about his daddy issues. But a massive runtime often leads to meandering ideas that go nowhere, and to be quite frank, Amiensus are the last band I’d expect to tackle a 90 minute album.
Amiensus have been kicking for a lot longer than you’d expect, a whole fourteen years to be exact. In that time, they’ve done a whole lot of writing, rewriting, and refining of their craft. 2020’s Abreaction saw a drop in the more proggy elements, at least less than the orchestration-laden Ascension and Restoration, and was a small step backward for the band. Despite this, they’ve had a surprisingly consistent discography for such a small band, so I was excited for what should be their magnum opus. Wary, yet excited.
Right off the bat, everything seems more sprawling than Abreaction. Amiensus have have partially reclaimed that spark they had on their first two. Part one of Reclamation shaped up to be one of the most dense albums I’ve listened to all year. Amiensus fly through ideas in this fifty-one minute runtime, almost to a fault. Songs like ‘Consciousness Throughout Time’ see them emulate the serene grandeur of Insomnium, while the eight minute ‘Sun and Moon’ reminds me more of Alcest.
What has immediately frustrated me about Reclamation Part I is the varying quality of songs that this album has to offer. The back half is some of the best bits of material Amiensus has put forward. Hell, I’ll go a step further to say this is an incredibly backloaded release, which I didn’t expect. There is so much to love once ‘Sun and Moon’ kicks in. The jaunty, folk melody of ‘Vermillion Fog of War’ that transitions into a Ne Obliviscaris-esque riff blew me away when I first heard it.
But the first half of this album almost feels like it crawls from idea to idea, never truly sticking or developing much of anything. ‘Reverie’ flashes with shades of Kardashev-esque, wispy atmosphere at the start, and while I can say the song is incredibly pretty, it doesn’t stick out like the album’s latter half does. The first half is pretty, but the songwriting feels underbaked and lacking. Ideas stick a lot more during the second half, and everything feels a bit more gelled together. ‘Transcendence Through Grief’ is the perfect way to end at a midpoint, with an all instrumental acoustic/electric combo slowly guiding Part I to a halt after the epic ‘Spoken Into Will’.
This album’s rating truly hinges on how good Part II is. For the time being, I can say if you’re a fan of prog black, you’ll probably enjoy this. There’s a lot to like about it, but a double album is only as strong as its whole. With one half reaching a solid verdict in my mind, I can only hope the same for Part II.
Recommended tracks: Sun and Moon, A Consciousness Throughout Time, Vermillion Fog of War
You may also like: Dessiderium, Aquilus
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: M-Theory Audio – Facebook
Amiensus is:
– Alec Roza (guitars, keyboards)
– James Benson (vocals, guitars, keyboards)
– D. Todd Farnham (Bass, guitars)
– Chris Piette (Drums, keyboards)
– Kelsey Roe (guitars)
0 Comments