EXPRESSIONIST

"Expressionist" is the debut full-length studio album by German death metal act Beltane. The album was independently released in 2008. Beltane formed in 2005 released the "Observation vortex" demo later that same year, and then released "Expressionist" in 2008. It was the band´s sole album release before they changed their name to Pictura in 2010.

Stylistically Beltane play a progressive and technically well played type of death metal. The band are skilled and deliver their parts with both passion and conviction. The vocals are predominantly death metal growling, but there are higher pitched aggressive snarling vocals on the album too. Sometimes the two extreme vocal styles are doubled. There are also clean vocals featured on "Expressionist" (courtesy of bassist Marius Borjans), and when they appear in the music, there´s a definite Opeth influence to be heard. Opeth is arguably a huge influence on the whole album (just listen to a track like "Ophilia") and Beltane often use heavy/mellow, dark/lighter epic dynamics, but there are other influences and elements too ("Her Watery Grave" for example briefly features female soprano vocals).

The songwriting is adventurous, progressive, and structurally intriguing, but Beltane don´t have the most unique sound, and while their music is as such memorable enough, there are better and more memorable progressive death metal releases out there, and in that respect "Expressionist" is a solid release, but seldom an album reaching excellence. The sound production is decent too, but again not reaching the heights of the sound productions on the best releases in the genre. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)