vote
7.5
- Band:
EPIC - Duration: 01:01:17
- Available from: 11/04/2025
- Label:
-
Nuclear blast
Streaming not yet available
Word of order: 'simplify'. In short, streamlining the compositions, which have become, over time, in the epic house, more and more complex, long, elaborate. After a long pause lasting four years, from the last “Omega” – a record certainly valid, but which had perhaps marked a little tired in the Songwriting of the Dutch band – this “aspiral” seems to give new life to training. Inside the group's symphonic metal remain all those elements that have created an unmistakable trademark – such as choirs, bombastic passages, extreme music inserts with the use of the growl – but all appears more concentrated, both in terms of duration of the individual songs, and in terms of complexity in the sound. And this is how Marc Jansen and associates managed to pack a more usable, fresher and more direct record, capable of hitting and leaving a mark without having to listen to it repeatedly for dozens of times.
The crackling “Cross the Divide” opens in an airy way listening, immediately showing the angelic voice of Simone surrounded by epic choirs, while the voices, which are united majestic in the following “arcana”, with an exhilarating orchestral impact and with the presence of some well used electronic arrangement, are an element that blends with the dreamy atmospheres that envelop this elegant atmospheres that envelop this elegant. composition. And again, the celestial and theatrical “Obsidian Heart” soon conquers with its soundtrack mood, enhancing the wonderful voice of the red Dutch singer.
They are precisely pieces as “Fight to Survive – The Ovserview Effect” and “Eye of the Storm” to make us go back in time, remembering the past times, of the beginning, with more direct sounds that bring us back to the beautiful “consign to oblivion”.
Of course, compositions such as “The Grand Saga of Existence-a New Age Dawns part IX” and “Metanoia-a New Age Dawns part VIII”, instead, those majestic and imposing epic with many changes of atmospheres and time, which dilute a little, perhaps free of charge (even if remaining within the seven-eight minutes of durability), and reaches those dark and extreme passages, characterize their latest releases. But they are single episodes that, within a generally lighter tracklist, still manage to find their meaning and accommodation.
Finally, how can we not mention the ballad that closes the disc, the moving title-track, where even the piano becomes mild, almost as if not wanting to disturb or interfere with Simone's dreamy and exciting voice?
A rich songwriting and, beyond a couple of episodes, a more cumbersome thread, truly of a remarkable level, for a band that also shows all its own overfine class again. “Aspiral”, at the same time complex and direct, still combines many elements, but on this occasion in a more synthetic and sliding context, for a final result that can be appreciated a lot.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
