EVER-ARCH-I-TECH-TURE

"Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Belgian black metal act Axamenta. The album was released through Shiver Records in May 2006. "Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture" is a concept album divided into three chapters. In addition to the lyrics the booklet features newspaper articles and notes from the protagonists, which along with the lyrics explain the full story. It's a rather ambitious project but it's beautifully done and works really well.

Stylistically the music on "Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture" is a mix of symphonic black metal in the vein of Cradle of Filth and especially Dimmu Borgir (with a slight nod towards Emperor too) and melodic death metal. The tracks are relatively complex and the atmosphere busy and epic, which provide the album with a progressive edge too. The fact that Daniel Gildenl'w from Pain Of Salvation guests with some clean vocals on the ballad type track "Threnody for an Endling" only strengthens the progressive link. This is not more progressive in nature than acts like Dimmu Borgir and Emperor are at their most challenging though, so this is first and foremost symphonic black metal. The vocals predominantly vary between snarling high pitched black metal type rasps and deeper death metal growling, but as mentioned above there are moments featuring clean vocals on the album too.

It's music drenched in synths/keyboards/piano and because of it the soundscape is rather busy at times. The band make it work well though and there is a good coherence between the more "regular" metal instruments, the vocals and the synths/keyboards/piano. This is in large part due to the detailed and powerful sounding production, that helps to bring the best out in the music. The fact that these guys are skilled musicians and songwriters are not exactly issues either.

"Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture" is a high quality symphonic black metal album and to be honest that's actually quite a surprise keeping in mind the rather questionable quality of their previous output. This one reeks class and determination though and upon conclusion it's a very impressive release by Axamenta. High level musicianship, a professional, powerful, and detailed sound production, and intriguing songwriting to boot. A 4 star (80%) rating is fully deserved.