Ephel Duath: Hemmed by Light, Shaped by Darkness

A nice take on death metal, Ephen Duath plays with boundaries by shifting tempos and moving outside the strict constraints of the average death metal approach. While some of this is pretty much by-the-numbers death, I found that some of the songs increased the record's interest by challenging the genre. This disc starts out as a typical kind of death metal song in "Feathers Under My Skin." There is the growled vocals, engineering set to treble for the guitars, etc., making for a mostly mid-tempo song. And the next song, "Tracing the Path of Blood," is similar; same slowish tempo, same growled vocals, same old death metal. Maybe the lyrical content is a bit different, though it can be hard to tell. But by the third song, this begins to change. These guys are not trying to pound you into submission; they have something else going on. The musicianship is superb, and the erstwhile Marco Minnerman is there on drums, to support Karyn Crisis' vocals and David Tiso and Bryan Beller on guitar and bass respectively.

Songs tend to run in the 6-7 minute range, so there is time to examine texture and mood. And on the last two songs, the band moves into a radically different territory. The two songs of the album title are more gothic, slower and deeper. Overall, while this style of music is not always my cup of tea, these folks play well and hard, and there is much to admire here.

Track Listing

1. Feathers Under My Skin
2. Tracing the path of Blood
3. When Mind Escapes Flesh
4. Within This Soil
5. Those Gates to Nothing
6. Through Flames I Shield
7. Hemmed by Light
8. Shaped by Darkness

Added: November 18th 2013
Reviewer: Dana Lawrence
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 2318
Language: english

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