AXAMENTA

— First review of this album —

Incognation is a self-released EP released by Belgium´s symphonic/ melodic black metal act Axamenta. The EP contains 3 tracks and the total playing time is 16:32 minutes.

The music on the EP is symphonic/ melodic and keyboard driven black metal. The three songs are well composed and powerful and the production is professional and well sounding too. A quality product if you´re interested in the style. Influences come from bands like Dimmu Borgir and especially Old Man´s Child.

Incognation is a good example of symphonic/ melodic black metal with dominant keyboards, but it´s not a release that stands out as something special in the genre. A good yet pretty standard release deserving 3 stars.

Codex Barathri is the debut full-length studio album by Belgian melodic black metal act Axamenta. I found the the Nox Draconis Argenti (1999) EP release from the band to be a less than impressive effort and I was curious to find out if they had improved on Codex Barathri.

The music is still melodic and symphonic black metal but there are hints to the Swedish melodic death metal scene as well. The vocals are raspy and aggressive as usual for the style. While the music isn´t badly composed or totally uninteresting it´s certainly rather generic to my ears. I´m not particularly a fan of the genre though so take that into account when you´re considering if you should check out the album. Fans of Symphonic black metal could be more friendly towards the music on the album than me. I´d prefer Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth anytime though.

The musicianship is pretty standard and the performance doesn´t sticks out as being excellent or original by any means.

The production is good but pretty standard. Nothing special to my ears.

Codex Barathri is somewhere between a 2 and a 3 star rating for me, but I have to give it a 2 star rating as it doesn´t really do anything for me. The album is not innovative IMO, the compositions are rather generic and the musicianship and production values are standard. I´m just not enjoying myself. It is an improvement over the Nox Draconis Argenti EP though and that´s always something because that release was really poor IMO.

— First review of this album —

"Nox Draconis Argenti" is the debut release from Belgian (Zwijndrecht, Antwerp) extreme metal act Axamenta ( if you don´t count the two demos "Echoes (1995)" and "Into a Dream (1997)" which preceded it). "Nox Draconis Argenti" is an EP and the playing time is 28:01 minutes so in terms of quantity it´s well worth the money. The EP was independently released in November 1999.

The music on the album is symphonic and melodic black metal with lots of orchestral keyboard arrangements. Listening to the bombastic and symphonic classical intro "The Revenant's Dirge" almost led me to believe that this was a side project by the guys in Rhapsody of Fire. Throughout the album the keyboards are very dominant in the soundscape. The vocals are predominantly black metal rasps but there are some female singing too. Now I said that the music on "Nox Draconis Argenti" is black metal but the keyboards have a tendency to give the music a vanilla power metal touch that unfortunately drains the music of energy. And believe me it´s not like there´s much energy there to drain in the first place. The music is very generic. Nothing here hasn´t been tried at least a hundred times with more success by bands like Dimmu Borgir or Old Man´s Child.

The musicianship isn´t too impressive but the the most grueling error on "Nox Draconis Argenti" is the lack of power and memorable hooks in the music.

The production is below standard and most of all sounds like a demo recording. The keyboards are too high in the mix and the raspy vocals are too low. The guitars sound weak and tired and the drums sound muddy.

This is not a good start for Axamenta and I really hope some of their later releases improve in quality. I can´t stretch with this one. A 1 star rating it is.

Well first of all, Ever-Arch-][-Tech-Ture is actually progressive symphonic black death metal, so not everyone will like this. Okay, let's start with the 1st song, "Incognation" starts good, but after a minute it becomes harder, with progressive/symphonic sounds, you have to like death metal to like this song, not the best one on the album. The 2nd song, "Demons Shelter Within" is better then the first one, it's a little bit more progressive but still very metal like also a great piano tune at the 3 minute point. The 3rd song, "Ashes To Flesh" is one of the best songs on the album imo, perfect combination between progressive/symphonic and death metal. There is also some great singing in this song. I think most of you will like this song. The 4th song, "A Nation In Atrophy" is again a lot harder, with some good parts, but this one is almost completely Death Metal, not that good. The 5th song, "The Midnight Grotesque" starts with a piano, and then some guitars with some background singing like this "ahahahahahah" or something like that :), pretty hard song, but a good one, the background singing makes it good. The 6th song, "Prophet Set To Witness" is again a death metal song. The 7th song, "Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture" is a great song, with a lot of symphonic sounds. The 8th song, "Threnody For An Endling" is written by Daniel Gildenlöw from PAIN OF SALVATION, he is also the vocals on this song, good song. The 9th song, "Ravager 1.6.6.3." is again purely death metal, with some nice keyboard sounds. The 10th song, "Of Genesis And Apocalypse" is the longest song on the album, 8 minutes, and it's a great mix of death metal with progressive and symphonic sounds. The 11th song, "Forboding" is a short song, but a very good one, very progressive and nice to hear. The 12th song, "Shackles Cross" isn't that good, very hard, not progressive at all. The 13th song, "The Omniscient" is the best song on the album, especially the part where he is singing "save me, I'm falling" this song you all need to have.

I'll give this album a 7.5/10 because I can listen to death metal too. It's a good album, but definitely not essential.

Best songs on the album: The Omniscient, Ashes To Flesh, Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture, Threnody For An Endling and Forboding