Style: black (harsh vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: France
Release date: 28-02-2018
NOTE: This album was originally included in the 2018 missed albums issue of The Progressive Subway
I was really eager to listen to this album. When u/kilik2049 asked me to consider this for reviewing 5 months ago, the February edition had already passed. This album is where my idea of doing a missed albums edition originally came from. He described it as spacy, progressive black metal with a saxophone, which had me instantly intrigued. However, I decided not to touch it until I went for a review so I could fully immerse myself in it. And so now that I did, how did it hold up to my expectations?
The answer is: it did not. It’s indeed spacy and there’s a saxophone, but not in a good way. Instead of subtly carrying you across the waves of their soundscapes, the songwriting rather feels aimless and bloated. The great atmospheric bands of yore like Agalloch (or Phendrana from the January edition) do have long drawn out passages, but there’s always a grander sense of purpose. Even if it’s not immediately clear where they’re going, you know they’ll take you somewhere you haven’t been before, and that it’ll be great. Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa on the other hand just do drawn out tremolo sections and occasionally change it up to prevent the boredom from becoming too great. And they aren’t even good tremolos either, they’re just, there. The other guitar parts aren’t all that memorable either. The guitar performance is just really forgettable. It’s not bad, it’s just uninteresting. And the sax playing isn’t any better either. Most of the time the sax just follows the guitar lines instead of providing a unique addition to the music. After the first 5 minutes, you know what the rest of the album is gonna sound like. The only surprising thing after that is the throat singing in the final song of the album, which also goes on for way too long.
I really don’t have much good to say about this album. It doesn’t actively suck, but there’s barely anything that stands out about this either. There’s a couple of inspired riffing sections and the fourth track has some solid potential, but as of right now there’s nothing that makes me want to come back to this album, though it might work well as background music.
Recommended tracks: Along the Uncertain Paths of the Maphoros
Recommended for fans of: idk, Agalloch? Saxophones? Background music?
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa is:
– Tristan (vocals, guitars)
– P.A (guitars)
– Paul (drums)
– Alexis (bass)
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