Since the inception of “Leiden”, there were hardly any people who were not singing this album’s praises. Washington based Tech-Death outfit Aethereus dropped their sophomore album this week, and the album has not only managed to crawl up through the saturated market of Tech-Death but also mark itself an outstanding album.
“Leiden” starts itself with “Aberration”: a grand orchestration leading up to no nonsense face-smashing tech-death riffs. You just enter the 30 secs mark of the album, and your face is already melted with the sheer brutality and technicality of the riffs! “Endless Cycle of Rebirth” shows some damn good Inferi style riffs. A bit of black-metal-ish vocals can be seen in the second half of the song, reminding of Vale of Pnath. “Shrouded” begins with an acoustic intro, blending immediately into dissonance based chord structures and riffs. Add some piano, horns and string to the orchestra, and you have got yourself a perfect ending. For all the bass lovers, “Living Abyss” somewhat marks the second half of the album. A medium-paced song with some epic dual guitar solo, this composition is a massive 9 minute tech-death goldmine. Mike Low of Inferi contributes a guitar solo in the track. The album title-track “Leiden” features Malcolm Pugh, again from Inferi. “Son of a Nameless Father” probably has the catchiest main riff, proceeding with dissonant chording. Sanjay Kumar (Equipoise) contributes to a guitar solo. The closing track “Upon Infinite Seas” immediately creates a vertigo feeling and a sense of doom. The song itself takes a crazy ride and returns back to where the album began.
The addition of orchestra is often a hit or a miss for many tech-death bands, but Aethereus perfectly executes the use of orchestrations. Benjamin Glassman and Kyle Chapman on Guitars, Scott Hermanns on Bass, Matt Behner on Drums and Vance Bratcher on vocals, everybody delivers incredible performance on the album. Every instrument itself sounds so beastly, thanks to the insane production of the album! There is no denying the fact that the band has insane musicians, and this album is the living proof of it! Definitely Aethereus's magnum opus till date.
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Website: Aethereus
Genre: Technical Death Metal
FFO: Inferi, First Fragment, Obscura
Release Worldwide: January 14th, 2022.
