About a year-and-a-half ago, I heard an independently released, four-song CDR by Louisiana's oddly named Cea Serin called The Surface of All Things, which arrived without even a track listing but combined clean and warm vocals with death-metal growls set against a moody sonic backdrop of tribal drums, dramatic guitars and hypnotic keyboards. I usually keep everything I review, but for some reason, I cannot find The Surface of All Things, which is a shame, because I wanted to compare that EP to … Where Memories Combine … - the band's new tour de force that comes with a track listing, packaging and everything!
Cea Serin's name, according to its web site, means "what you are all about." This trio is all about eloquent arrangements, complex concepts, soaring melodies, passionate delivery and blurred metal genres. On … Where Memories Combine … , the first four tracks comprise the entire 30-minute title suite from The Surface of All Things, while two of the remaining three songs come from the Exhibition 1999 demo. The spooky instrumental "An Evening at the Suicide Café" closes out … Where Memories Combine … .
Firmly rooted in European metal traditions, Cea Serin sounds like a bastardization of Pain of Salvation and Dream Theater, with complex and gloomy yet ultimately poetic lyrical concepts. To wit: "Lured into a deep regression, stifled in repose/But slowly this torrent with black lights enclose/Banished breaths and enraptured eyes/Wrapped and wrung to white-ribbed skies/But failing … failing to turn the wise," from "Embracing the Absence."
Of course, by now, combining clean and extreme vocals with obscure lyrics, offbeat arrangements and multicolored textures is nothing new in progressive metal. But Cea Serin, despite the presence of digital percussion, still deserves points for having more than a drop or two of originality in its blood.
Track Listing:
1) A Fracture in Forever
2) Embracing the Absence
3) Meridian's Tear
4) The End of Silence
5) Scripted Suffering: Within and Without
6) Into the Vivid Cherishing
7) An Evening at the Suicide Cafe
Total Time: 54:13
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