Style: black metal, progressive metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: Chile
Release date: 19 October, 2018
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the 2018 missed albums issue of The Progressive Subway]
It took me a long time to come up with something to write about this album, even though I knew about (and listened to) this album for more than a month already. As promised after the October edition, this one would be featured in missed albums. Ever have it that you listen to an album a zillion times, but every time afterwards you feel like you missed something? Like there had to be more to it? Or maybe you just expected to hear something that wasn’t there? This is one of those albums, but I finally know what to say about it.
Voragine of Autumn is a peculiar band. They’re basically like a black metal version of Opeth, or a blacker Enslaved, but then without the clean vocals and way more drawn out. You have long, meandering melodic passages that sweep you in a trance. There’s riffs and black metal sure, but everything they do is full of melody and even during the intense parts it feels like you’re drifting on the waves. One moment they can be in full tremolo assault, but before you know it you’re back to acoustics or there’s a beautifully drawn out guitar solo over hypnotic black metal chords (idk what they’re called).
And so the songs go on and on, drifting through different sounds while keeping their black metal core. Various post-rock influences in the writing can be heard as well in how they structure their music, though I’m missing the big crescendos.
And maybe that’s what’s bothering me so much about this record: it’s missing payoff. The music feels often aimless. All the songs are long, approaching the 10 minute mark, and it doesn’t really feel like they fully justify that length. It’s not like I’d really cut much of it, but it’s rather that I’m missing some meat, something that’ll grab your attention and make you go “wow”. The lack of clean vocals also doesn’t help here. The acoustic sections especially just scream for some soothing clean vocal lines to give it some structure. It seems like they just don’t really know where they’re going. And while that’s not necessarily a bad thing for atmospherically tinged music, it does hack into its memorability. It makes listening to this album feel like a fleeting dream: as soon as you wake up you forget most of what happened. All that’s left is the vague sensation that it was a good dream.
So on the whole this is a very fine release. This band is what I wanted Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa to be. Though by no means flawless, this is atmospheric prog black done right. If you just want to lay down and drift off to some faraway place, but still have some sort of intensity, this album is where you should go. I imagine this would be excellent trance music as well. Don’t go in expecting epic riffs though.
Recommended tracks: Frozen Lakes, Aphelion
Recommended for fans of: Enslaved, Agalloch, Opeth, relaxing music
Final verdict: 7.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Voragine of Autumn is:
– S. (vocals, guitars, keyboards)
– Nativo Pagano (guitars)
– Cristhian Alarcon (drums)
– Alexis Gallardo (bass)
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