Italian act Ephel Duath, named after the Shadow Mountains from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, are an eccentric, weird entity. Frontman Davide Tiso did work with several internationally well-appreciated musicians to create his former material (this time is not different, of course; see further), but still with his personal vision in mind. After a break, he moved to North America to marry to Karyn Crisis (Crisis, Karyn Crisis band), where he reformed this project in association with his newly-wedded wife. It resulted in a first Agonia-release: the mini-album On Death And Cosmos (for the review done by -it-, see the update on September 16th 2012 in the Archives-section of the site). Because the audience was pleased with the result, multi-instrumentalist Davide and singer Karyn decided to go on, and started working on new material. They had it produced at the famous Mana Recording Studio with producer Erik Rutan (think: Vital Remains, Hate Eternal, Cannibal Corpse, Rivers Of Nihil, Malevolent Creation a.o.), who also contributes with guest backing vocals and a solo (in the songs Feathers Under My Skin and Within This Soil respectively). Like on last year’s EP, the drum parts on Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness were provided by Marco Minneman of Necrophagist-fame (also known from his collaboration with e.g. Psyaxis and Painstyle, Joe Satriani, Kreator, Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert and so on), and this time the bass was performed by Bryan Beller (Mullmuzzler, Steve Vai, The Aristocrats, Dethklok, Joe Satriani).
The album brings fifty two minutes of mathematically de-con-structured Metal, which combines elements from Progressive, Post-Black and thrashing Death Metal, including jazzy and avant-garde elements. Every track sounds like a multi-layered version of itself, revealing itself only after a couple of listens. The modernism of the songs is more mature and less weird and spastic than before (cf. last year’s mini), with that stronger technical approach in order to diminish the absurdity of the past’s madness. The riffing is more Death-laden than before, and the melodic structures are more professional and well-thought, even though at least as dynamic as the eccentric past.
And there is even a (slight, almost negligible) difference in between the mini and this full album, for the latter sounds less sludgy (On Death And Cosmos did; nevertheless, some tracks come with the same power several sludgy acts maintain as well) yet more Death Metal-oriented (instead of blackish as well)…
Conclusion: if you could care about the On Death And Cosmos-EP anyway, you will certainly like this new album. If not, well, then you will have to find out yourself…