Style: Progressive metal, metalcore (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Disillusion, Opeth, Born of Osiris
Country: Isle of Man
Release date: 02 July 2024
Isle of Man prog metalcore outfit Aeons have brute-forced me into waking from eternal reviewer slumber to once again check out their newest release, The Ghosts of What We Knew. Having already reviewed their previous two albums, Chris badgered me to death to check this out the moment it landed in our emails. Despite being slightly disappointed with their previous release Consequences, I was convinced that the potential Aeons showed on their debut was still present and that they’d just need to hone their craft a tad in order to put out something special. Their blend of groovy metalcore, memorable solos, acoustic passages and intricate conceptualization always proved that they were just a step away from greatness. It’d also seem like they did take their sweet time with this new release, taking a year longer than they did between their debut and sophomore. But how did that extra year fare out for them?
Despite a somewhat cliched acoustic guitar intro, the opening track “Noose” already shows a lot of signs of improvement as it delves straight into what defines Aeons as a band; thick, tight and heavy musicianship with influences from classic prog metal bands like Opeth but employed with enough restraint to not sound derivative. It’s a solid opening track, but maybe nothing that shows immediate improvement—that is until the song is about 2/3rds through. At this point, that generic, otherwise forgettable intro is reprised and developed as a segue into the final act of this song in a beautiful way, showcasing a sense of maturity that has blossomed within their songwriting.
The rest of The Ghosts of What We Knew doesn’t stray too far from this songwriting formula, but does have a few tricks up its sleeve. Take, for example, “Blood”, in which they go all-out power ballad mode, something familiar from “Blight ” off Consequences. However, “Blood” is a clear improvement in this formula over “Blight”. The latter was a solid track but felt extremely derivative, a standard soft song that could’ve been written by a hundred other prog metal artists, while the former is tied to the band’s sonic identity whilst simultaneously pushing themselves to integrate a different style to their usual fare.
Something that also caught my attention was how the track list is structured; it’ll normally juggle between a longer, complex song and a shorter, more accessible track to avoid your ears fatiguing from overwhelming technicality. This becomes especially prevalent towards the second half of the album, where every track over six minutes is directly preceded and followed by a shorter track that allows you to catch your breath and ground yourself. This effectively sets up the big hitter of the album, a near twenty-minute-long epic “Ghosts”. This behemoth of a track effectively delivers what I believe to be this band’s magnum opus so far; it flies by its long length with incredible cohesion between some of the band’s best riffs and a couple of choruses that could even classify as ear worms. It also contains one of their best solos yet, with melodic dueling guitars fooling around with odd time signatures, creating a very memorable passage that sticks out immediately.
Even though the degree of consistency is something that’s worth praising, I also can’t help but feel like it at points hurts the album, especially at a rather lengthy sixty-six minutes. Getting some songs mixed up with each other is easy due to how similar they are compositionally even if they’re all executed equally well. This problem reaches its climax after the twenty minute epic, since it’s NOT the closer of the album. It’s followed by two tracks which, while far from bad, fail from justifying their placement towards the end after such an epic track that truly feels like it was the final chapter in this journey. The final track being a whopping 10 minutes really drives this point home; with it feeling like I’m being served a dessert right after I finished a large Sundae. It may be tasty and good, but I’m already too full from what I had.
All in all, The Ghosts of What We Knew left me with a better taste in my mouth than their sophomore did, but also kind of hoping that Aeons could once and for all work out ALL of their flaws and give me a truly great album to enjoy. They effectively recovered after an underwhelming sophomore release and struck a chord with their most complex track yet, but there’s still room for improvement. Luckily for them, they’ve figured out a blueprint for greatness; all they need to do now is understand where less means more, especially when it comes to trimming the track list in favor of a more focused album.
Recommended tracks: Noose, Home, Ghosts
You may also like: No Terror in the Bang, Hope for the Dying, The Gorge, Hypnagone, The Offering
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives page
Label: Sliptrick Records – Facebook | Official Website
Aeons is:
– Skippy Hilton (vocals)
– Si Harvey (guitars, backing vocals)
– Scott Sayer (guitars, backing vocals)
– Joe Holland (bass)
– Justin Wallace (drums)
