Review: Metasphæra – Metasphæra

Style: prog/tech death (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Beyond Creation, Obscura, Psycroptic
Review by: Andy
Country: Germany
Release date: 24 March, 2023

Technical death metal is a genre for lovers. My partner has said many times she has never found me sexier than when I play air guitar along with Gloire Éternelle (First Fragment); my Subway co-conspirator Zach falls more in love with me each and every time I give him more shreddy recs; and the first time I questioned my sexuality was watching Christian Muenzner play the solo from “The Anticosmic Overlord” live with Obscura. So yes, technical death metal is for lovers. 

That simple introductory statement helps explain why the sound of a six-string fretless bass is so arousing. Thus, noticing that the self-titled debut of Germany’s Metasphæra contains playing from Hugo Doyon-Karout (Equipoise, Beyond Creation)… piqued my interest. And his playing from the very start of “Exil” (not Exul, Zach) further stimulated my… interest. While not the unfettered bass-lovers playground of Doyon-Karout’s playing on Demiurgus, he nonetheless provides a much-needed grounding point to many tracks on Metasphæra, a solid background of melody and rhythm. The perfect tone of one of the world’s bass gods is unmistakable whether in the necessary contrapuntal interlude “Weite” or underneath metronomically precise blast beats and fills of a slightly unwieldy debut. But perhaps the foremost aspect of Hugo’s playing here is the restraint to allow Matthias Wolf’s and Tom Heckmann’s guitar parts to gleefully dominate.

With a lead cadence somewhere in between Beyond Creation and Psycroptic, the guitar work that is laid down across Metasphæra never sacrifices groove for technicality–which they have in abundance. The subtle ornamentations on each chuggy riff transforms the final product from heavy moshers into carefully-calculated, involved death metal. Riff to riff, the performances are reminiscent of Joe Haley (Psycroptic) as on songs like “Sturm” where the players effortlessly transition between intricate, interlocking parts or like “Exil” whose coda has a massive vocal windup before unleashing a wickedly heavy riff. On the contrary, the solos are more evocative of Simon Girard (Beyond Creation) in their slowed down, sexy legato and more relaxed feel. 

Alas, as a normal guy, I can only last so long listening to such rousing music, and Metasphæra’s sixty-eight minutes really tests my threshold. Years of listening to extreme technical death metal™ has certainly helped me last longer in my flings with new albums, but the transitions are still not fully rendered, and the songs for the most part feel similar: My excitement wanes a little. When Obsidious shattered the prog/tech death paradigm last year, implementing stellar clean vocals not just as a slight palette cleanser as on previous tech death experiments but as an integral part of their sound, they shifted my expectations for this style of music. Metasphæra really do shine brightly in most regards, but this sound is a couple years late to be fully exceptional in the tech zeitgeist. 

All that isn’t to say that Metasphæra don’t complicate their sound–the use of cello in the intro and the second part of the epic, “Realitäten,” add depth to the composition–but I need a couple more curveballs if your band is gonna overwhelm me with over an hour of intensely technical music. Otherwise, each flurry of blast beats, each solo loses some power and relevance as my blood has already left my brain for a while. I can’t enjoy an album as much if I’m already passed out from an ischemic stroke. But to Metasphæra’s credit, I only feel like that’s a possibility because so much is profoundly arousing about this album. 

Technical death metal just makes me feel things. 

Recommended tracks: Exil, Realitäten, Sturm
You may also like: Caratucay, Augury, Obsidious, De Profundis
Final verdict: 7/10

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

Label: independent

Metasphæra is:
– Hugo Doyon-Karout (bass)
– Johannes Kochs (drums)
– Matthias Wolf (guitar)
– Tom Heckmann (vocals, guitars)