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- Bands:
IXION - Duration: 00:24:13
- Available from: 10/18/2024
- Label:
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Finisterian Dead End
With the publication of the third and final EP, entitled “Regeneration”, the six-month wait for the release of the new full-length album by the French duo Ixion ends, who have chosen this peculiar process to lead their fans and occasional listeners to doors of the upcoming “Evolution”, the group's fifth work which will focus on the conceptual and sonic exploration of the intricate relationship between human and artificial intelligence.
Having already well analyzed the previous EPs, “Extinction” and “Restriction”, we will not dwell for long on the examination of “Regeneration”, which, following the script of the story, presents us with more integrated and organic soundscapes, mixing more or less equally the main components forming the Ixion sound, namely the electronic one and the atmospheric doom metal one.
If “Extinction” presented us with highly dreamy and nostalgic sounds and “Restriction” delved deep into robotic contaminations, in “Regeneration” Ixion become more fluid and 'complete', highlighting episodes with different lengths but capable of all transmitting a sort of profound and mediumistic ecstasy, in which a crescendo of pathos and solemnity leads towards a dramatic, but somehow fair and desirable epilogue.
“Give Up The Ghost… And Open Your Eyes” opens the EP by emphasizing the typical Ixion style, ethereal, 'travelling' and light, capable of making us daydream; the following “Second Birth” is still short and has a strong electro-pop appeal that makes us turn up our noses a bit, either due to its too much calmness or perhaps due to the choice of uninvolving melodies. “The First Outing” is longer in duration, returns to more Ixion-friendly places and is appreciated for an excellent guitar solo at the end, while the brevity of “Shades Of Time” does not limit its good pop-rock potential, whereas a melodic hook that is as simple as it is successful gives a strong epic quality to an intense piece that is perhaps poorly developed by the band.
Thus we quickly arrive at the two most substantial final songs, “Necropolis” and “In Search Of The Absolute”, the perfect summa of the new incarnation of Julien Prat and Yannick Dilly, well ranging between the features of AI graphics with the same brightness – the electronic arrangements, at times truly captivating – and the harshness of the group's original physiognomy, that is, the martial and spatial doom metal that exudes the unknown.
We will be in touch shortly to draw the conclusions of this long-awaited complete work, to be put under the microscope in its entirety, finally.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM