When Icarus Falls: Aegean

Many people are familiar with the famous five stages of dying. They are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages are so familiar that they are sometimes part of everyday conversation, often without realizing that they come from the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist who wrote many books, including On Death and Dying. These five stages are so common that they even end up in discussions of things other than dying—divorce, for example, or losing a job, or facing other major disappointments.

I'm not bringing up the five stages of dying to structure my review. I mention them because this album is based on them. I don't know for sure which tracks correspond exactly to which stages—the promotional materials note only that they come from the "main songs," probably the first five tracks, but the themes could certainly play out across the album as a whole. In any event, I really liked the way this album not only draws on the notion of the five stages of dying, but also on multiple Greeks myths to help elaborate on them. The band's name certainly helps: I'll bet that once Icarus realized he was going down, he rapidly went from denial to acceptance.

This is a good album. I wanted to understand the lyrics more that I did. Like so many bands these days, When Icarus Falls leaves us to rely on a lyric sheet to know the words. I accept that, but I still enjoy knowing how a band is wrestling with interesting ideas as I'm listening. Still, the music works well, creating a nice balance of the heavy and the meditative from beginning to end.

Musically, this album is a mixture of aggressive metal and something that sounds like post-metal. Most of the songs are heavy on mood, establishing the feel by holding notes a little longer and letting the drums and bass drone a little to keep things steady and consistent. Diego Mediano's vocals are mostly made up of highly emotive screams, but he doesn't overdo it. Things do change from track to track as the band explores the various stages of dying, but the overall feel of the thing was consistent and interesting to the end. Be sure to check out "Tears of Daedalus," a haunting meditation that combines piano with screaming and background whispering. There's a drone-like quality here that I enjoyed. The final track, "Hades," is also the longest—twice the length of all the other songs. I didn't like it as much as the rest of the album, probably because there's just too much going on there, as if the band is squeezing all the moods of the album into one long song. Nevertheless, these guys have written a cool and memorable album that is worth checking out.

Track Listing:
1. A Step Further
2. Aegean
3. Acheron—Eumenides
4. The Asphodel Meadows part 1
5. What We Know Thus Far (An Inner Journey)
6. Tears of Daedalus
7. Hades

Added: April 11th 2013
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 1947
Language: english

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