I remember the days when a debut album from a death metal band, regardless of where they were from, often meant a badly produced and badly played racket with little to discern one song from another. If the band were lucky, they would go on to make a second, slightly more refined album and so on, until lacking ideas and inspiration, a dreadful `death n roll’ finished the band off for good.
Absolutely not so in this case; this debut album from Hampshire-based Ageless Oblivion reeks of ability and professionalism. It is almost impossible to believe it’s a debut album, so accomplished is it. First of all, the production is almost flawless; the sound that pours out of the speakers is crushing, immense and also crystal clear. Every complex nuance of Ageless Oblivion’s music comes straight at you with full force – often technical death metal albums are either not that heavy, or they are so multilayered that the details get totally lost. This album manages to sound both crushing and complex at the same time.
Then there is the music itself – the band seem often to be labelled as `tech death’ but I don’t feel this categorization does them justice at all. There is a certainly a lot of musical complexity, and plenty of edgy, single-note, razor-sharp riffs. That they are expertly skilled musicians is in no doubt at all, but unlike a lot of technical death metal bands they are also skilled song-writers. A lot of the complexity isn’t found in overly complex time signatures, or widdly riffs that go on forever; instead the music is huge and expansive, with many different layers to it.
The post-metal influence creeps in every now and then, adding an extra element to the already vast, brutal and overwhelming music; there are some jaw-droppingly epic moments throughout the album, as well as some riffs so heavy that they would cave your skull in if you sat too near the speakers. Each song is like a musical journey through a bleak and devastated landscape, and made complete by Stephens, raw and powerful vocals. No ridiculous pig squeals here, every word is roared out with passion and feeling.
As an extreme metal fan of a `certain age’, I fully expected to dislike this (so-called) tech-death release on S.O.A.R. However, by the last track my jaw was sufficiently dropped as to get carpet burns. It really is great to hear an album with so much creativity as well as brutality squeezed into it – these guys have an incredible talent which can only take them further towards world domination.
http://www.myspace.com/agelessoblivion
