THE AMENSAL RISE

Get this, imagine the vocal stylings of Leprous, the mixing and production of Devin Townsend, the virtuosity of Haken, the avant-garde weirdness of Pan.Thy.Monium, and a touch of the djent of TesseracT, and you'll get a vague idea of what The Amensal Rise sounds like. I say vague since there really is nothing like this. There is just no real good way to fully prepare for an effort like this. Omnerod is a Belgium progressive metal act that formed in the great year of 2009, with their first record, Ivory Dune, only coming out around 2014. They are certainly a band that puts quality first and foremost on their mind, with their second record of Arteries coming out five years after their first, with four years since then crafting and releasing their latest endeavor of this year. Strange, though, how I never heard of them until this year with the announcement of Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater joining the group, but looking at ratings for their other releases on a variety of sites I assume they have been quite underground for a lot of people too. Their new release of this year does seem to be gaining traction, which is always nice to see.

Now, as for what the band delivers, it is safe to say this is one of the best avant-garde metal releases I have ever heard this year, and it is not even close. Prog metal this year has been especially good, but I haven't heard something quite like this in a while. The mix up of riffs, stylings, sometimes even genre changes is something I am very fond of from more weirdo metal acts like Mr. Bungle and Kayo Dot, but Omnerod puts that savant energy into seriously awesome music that blends the more modern day styles of prog metal well with a series of extremely grand music.

Now, for the music. One of the best things surrounding the album is just how much music they can cram into each song. You have styles of death metal, djent, sludge, groove, industrial, post, hell sometimes you can get stuff like be-bop style jazz and baroque pop on rare occasions. All of this meshes so well together, that even with all the switchups, everything just flows like bread and butter to my ears, to where even if you are listening to the softer sounds this album can have, or the rough & tough metal, you know you are listening to Omnerod.

This lovely sound is thanks mostly to Romain Jeuniaux and Anthony Deneyer's vocal performances. I don't quite know who does which vocals, the harsh & soft, but either way both are amazing. The harsh vocals have this guttural, almost Ihsahn tone to them, and as a recent fan of Ihsahn's works I really dig them. So brutal and intense, yet still so clean and filled with emotion that the screams feel all but carefully entwined with everything around them. I just cannot help but love them. The softer vocals are certainly more prevalent, and for good reasons, because they are just so excellent to me. They are like a deeper, more angry version of what Einar Solberg of Leprous puts out, sometimes even dipping into harsher vocal territories, but when the soft vocals are a lot more nuanced and quieter is certainly when they shine. So much emotion and energy that I cannot help but fall for them. The rest of the music surrounding the vocals are excellent too, of course, but they wouldn't have as much of an impact if not for the amazing vocal performances.

Now, sad to say, but I do not quite consider this a masterpiece. It's close to being there, just like tipping the edge of the pit to legendary status, but I think the thing holding this beast back a bit for me is the shorter tracks of Sunday Heat, Magnets, and Towards The Core. Now I am not gonna say these are bad tracks or "unneeded", since then I might as well say I am being held hostage by some super-duper prog freak-a-zoid, since I really do love these tracks too. Sunday Heat is a great opening, Magnets packs a lot of punch in such little time, and Towards The Core is just lovely, but they certainly do not punch the same punch as the longer tracks that dominate this album. Now, their efforts are certainly great, but when I come back for this album I often look towards the longer songs instead, as that is where the really juicy stuff comes into play. Again, not to say these tracks aren't at all good, because they really are, but if I had to rank my favorites from this album then the longer songs certainly take the dub. I don't really know how this issue could be improved, perhaps add more shorter tracks to even the playing field? Don't quite know, but this is kind of my only complaint, aside from one other, smaller thing to mention.

Speaking of longer tracks and favorites, it is safe to say my favorite from this album is the final track of The Commensal Fall. This is where the group is their most bombastic, going full throttle on the avant-garde metal, crafting a festival of insane riffs, drumlines, vocal performances, and a hell of a lot more, just packed into a 10 minute performance that I cannot get enough of. Also the final two minutes of acoustic guitar strumming is strangely perfect for an ending to this album. The calm after the storm, if you will.

The last thing I wanna mention that other reviewers have stated is this album can definitely feel very long, at least for the first listen. I personally do not really mind longer listens, since such never bothered me, but I know people who may be turned off on listening to an hour long, avant-garde, prog metal record with tracks that are from 10 to 12 minutes. If you're that type of person, my best advice is to probably have this in the back while maybe cleaning your home or doing the dishes. Metal music can surprisingly be good music to listen to while you are doing stuff, at least for me.

You do not see an album like this every day. It is a wonderful experience front to back, and whilst just shy of being another high-class masterpiece of this year, certainly makes up for it with high class playing, singing, and pure energy that could even rival giants like Ne Obliviscaris, or even Opeth. I do hope more people check this album out, since it is just that great. Certainly up there as one of the best metal releases to come out of this year.