Ancient Ascendant are an English four-piece that recorded two minis and one full length before. When it comes to the latter, that full length, which was called The Grim Awakening, I would kindly like to ask you to search for the review done by truly-yours-undersigned, posted on October 2nd 2011 as part of the ‘Siege Of Amida Records Special 2011” I did. In mean time, the band did perform live on stage with bands like Bolt Thrower, Enslaved, Aborted, Rotting Christ, 1349, Hypocrisy etc.
In between the live-performance schedules and other occupations in 2013, Ancient Ascendant worked on their second full length, which was, once again, finalised with legendary producer Dan Swanö (too many bands to mention). And believe me (or do not, for I do not care) if I say that this album is an evident, logical successor of the debut full length, with all pros and cons.
The pros are legio once again; the cons very limited. These minor details might be a certain amount of rather predictable parts once in a while, yet in comparison to the former album it’s even less disturbing. Here I will end the possibility of ‘negativism’ on Echoes And Cinder. The pros then… Well, actually everything is ‘more than all right’. The variation in tempo and song structures, the vocals, the interaction leads versus rhythms, the equilibrium tradition-progression, the massive production, the Doom-laden and/or blackish-thrashy (or thrashing-blackened?) injections, and so on, and so on. Even the addition of acoustic parts from time to time is way beneath average in this band’s case. And the development of ‘own-approach-creation’ (what a marvellous neologism, isn’t it?) stands above standard.
I think Echoes And Cinder is one of the best Death Metal albums from the UK in years, and one of the best Death Metal albums, internationally seen, from 2014 (though we have started this unholy year only very recently, of course…).