ILLUSIVE GOLDEN AGE

"Illusive Golden Age" is the third full-length studio album by Canadian, Quebec based technical/progressive death metal act Augury. The album was released through The Artisan Era in March 2018. It´s the successor to "Fragmentary Evidence" from 2009. There has been one lineup change since "Fragmentary Evidence" as drummer Étienne Gallo has been replaced by Antoine Baril.

Stylistically the material on "Illusive Golden Age" is a continuation of the technical/progressive death metal style of "Fragmentary Evidence". Augury are still an incredibly well playing unit and they pull out one powerful technical death metal riff and drum part after another, and Dominic "Forest" Lapointe´s fretless bass playing also gets the occasional spotlight. The vocals are quite brutal, shifting between deep unintelligible growling and higher pitched blackened screaming, and there are occasionally other types of vocals used in the music too. The opening title track for example features some semi-melodic shouting raw vocals.

Although "Illusive Golden Age" features a lot of challenging and sophisticated parts, one of the great assets of Augury is that they never loose their extreme metal credibility or brutality. They are arguably in the more polished end of the death metal spectrum, but there is still an aggressive and brutal edge to their music (as well as unpredictable chaotic atmospheres), which prevent "Illusive Golden Age" from becoming a sterile and powerless exercise in technical/progressive wankery. So, this is an album where you can simoultaniously drop your jaw and bang your head. An achievement Lapointe´s former bandmates in Beyond Creation for example didn´t pull off on the contemporary "Algorythm" (2018) album.

Augury have been among the elite technical/progressive death metal artists since the release of their debut full-length studio album "Concealed" in 2004, and just as they did on "Fragmentary Evidence", they continue that trend on "Illusive Golden Age", which is another powerful, sophisticated, but still brutal and intense death metal release. A 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

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