Review Summary: Equivoke might not be as strong as Hieronymus Bosch second release Artificial Emotions, but is still a worthy addition to their overall strong discography.
Hieronymus Bosch is a Russian metal band that was created in 1993. Over a time span of seventeen years they have only released three full-length albums, but they have all been fairly well received in the underground metal scene. The band did unfortunately play their last show in April of 2010. There has been no signs of the band ever returning to create a fourth album.
No songs in Equivoke lacks any compassion and they are truly what you might call “beauty in darkness”. So harsh yet very soothing and you can really get lost in their sound. It’s like floating on wavy water feeling the waves take you back and forth. Equivoke has a soft edge without being dull. Very rhythmical and melodic but it’s still obviously death metal. The vocals are harsh mid deep growls which adds spice to Equivoke. They are not to interesting though and could be way more varied. Incredible riffs fills the album to the top and the fretless bass follows along with a pronounced smooth sound, similar to the bass sound that we can hear in Cynic, Obscura, Quo Vadis, etc... Come to think of it, this is really similar to Cynic and Atheist just with a more redefined better produced sound, but not as insane as Atheist might get at points and less well written than Focus. The lyrics featured on Equivoke are very smart and interesting just as the song titles might reveal. The undoubtedly superb drumming is easily most similar to the drumming done of the album Human by Death. Not to aggressive, but still fierce and just insanely technical.
I guess I made all of this sound very corny, but my explanations are true and it wasn’t my intention to write about Equivoke so that it would seem like an absolute masterpiece. It really is not, but still severely overlooked. Hieronymus Bosch should definitely be known as one of the best within it’s genre (progressive/technical death metal that is). This album has a lot of impact both in sound and in emotion. During the middle of Equivoke it’s easy to just get lost. Not lost in the good way or that it’s to complex for our brains to handle, but the bad kind of lost when the album just goes nowhere for a while. Thankfully, Equivoke ends with the song The Mime which is a great song and a very surreal, perfect fitting ending on this very, from time to time, abstract album; however, not as atmospherically abstract as Hieronymus Boschs two first albums are.
Recommended tracks: Zero on a Dice, Fingerprint Labyrinth, Monad Hecatomb, The Mime.