Analepsy – Quiescence (Review)

So the new Analepsy is here. It greets us with an atmosphereic cover of a planet that seems deserted and void of life with a big vortex over it. It’s colorscheme ranges in blues and purples. Whatever came out of that vortex must have exterminated all life on that planet. This sets the mood for the record.

It opens up to a powerful track that gives an impression of what is to expect from the album. Heavy  guitars mixed with tight drumming, all very forward-pressing and downtuned with the occasional high notes from the guitars to loosen up the atmosphere and give your ears something different. Vocals are deep and aggressive, not very loud and definitely lower than the guitars. This presses through the first three tracks. Track four – “Accretion Collision” – gives you a banger with the occasional guitar solo in it to lighten up the sound and it is more playful but on the same pressing level as before. It just sets up what you’re going in to for the second part of the album.

The sound gets more diverse but doesn’t lose the atmosphere of the deep, dark and menacing mood that is created.  For slam, it’s on a very high technical level, but doesn’t lose what defines this gerne. You have your heavy breaks, just with a bit more playfulness and even guitars that are on a high-tuned level, just to go back to the downtuned pressure you love so much. This in combination with beautiful tightly played drums that push you through every track just to give you a bit of relaxation in the hard grooving Slam parts. The vocals that are mostly very deep break into an occasional screech to diversify and round out the sound. 

All in all, it’s a real blast that is fabricated here, a clean mix that every instrument can be enjoyed to its fullest. Maybe I wished the vocals could come through a bit more here and there but that doesn’t matter in its overall quality. What you’ll get out of this is about forty minutes of very enjoyable Slam with a level of technicality not that common for this genre.