 | Tracklist:
Disc One
1. Awaken
2. Frost
3. Hail
4. Exmersion
5. Buds
6. Awe
7. Quittance
8. Limbo
9. Plenitude
10. Finale
Disc Two
1. Dew Upon Shapeless Bounds
2. Winds From Untold Memories
3. Promises Of Our Early Days
| Ranking: #62 for 2011 | |
| | other reviews | Cysquatch (4)
In the face of a rabid demographic eagerly awaiting an improvement on Meshuggah's oft imitated formu... |
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| Summary: Februus is an outstanding record, finding the perfect balance between intense heaviness and beautiful atmosphere. |
14 of 14 thought this review was well written
If our friends on the other side of the globe the French are known for one thing, it most certainly isn’t for their music scene, let alone experimental metal. With their debut album Februus, French metallers Uneven Structure are about to change all of that. Combining the atmosphere of bands like Pink Floyd with the intensity of Meshuggah, the French sextet have created an album that is both brutal and beautiful, often at the same time.
Opener and first single ‘Awaken’ bursts out of the speakers after an ambient introduction; serving as an excellent microcosm for what Uneven Structure are all about in the space of two minutes. By marrying beautiful, haunting ambience with jarring, down tuned riffs, the band have essentially taken the stereotypical djent sound and done it properly. Bands like Tesseract hint at the ambient side of he music, while there are a plethora of bands chugging away from the sake of it, but Uneven Structure are the first group to bring the two together an actually make it work. The perfect example of this is ‘Frost,’ which carries the listener through beautiful atmospheres, which are then completely replaced by a flurry of riffs and screams. On ‘Frost’ in particular, this works incredibly well, with the interchanging heavy guitars and lightly picked guitars making for one of the best songs to be released this year.
Where Februus really succeeds is the manner in which the production brings out the more ambient and fragile moments of the record, in effect making these moments the album’s centrepiece. Mention must be made to vocalist Mattheiu Romarin whose monumental screams perfectly juxtapose his equally outstanding clean vocals. One only has to look to tracks like ‘Hail’ and the aptly named ‘Finale’ for an example of this. Comparisons will be made to people like Mikael Akerfeldt in terms of sound; particularly with respect to his clean vocals. Polyrhythms abound throughout the album, with drummer Christian Schreill laying claim to some impressive drum fills (see ‘Hail’) and only further increase the intensity of the record.
By all rights, Februus could have easily been quite a derivative, unmemorable album, especially given how hard it is to create something that stands out in a vastly overpopulated style of music. However, Februus the complete opposite in that by focusing more on creating an atmosphere and drawing the listener to their sound, it immediately becomes memorable. In fact, the only real fault in the record is that the heavier parts can be construed as becoming quite repetitive as the album progresses. However, given the focus of Februus is creating an atmosphere and drawing out emotion, the occasional derivative riff is easily forgotten.
With Februus, Uneven Structure have achieved the perfect medium between crushing heaviness and beautiful ambience. The end result is djent done properly and Uneven Structure are well deserving of the copious amounts of praise that will come with the release of their debut. Februus is a phenomenal release and will most definitely go down as one of the albums of 2011.
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| Recent reviews by this author | | | |
Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
Streaming on Soundcloud.
My first review in aaaages
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
nice review mate. this album is incredible and definitely one of the best of 2011.
Digging: Ne Obliviscaris - Portal of I Digging: Ne Obliviscaris - Portal of I | | |
"Bands like Tesseract hint at the ambient side of he music, while there are a plethora of bands chugging away from the sake of it"
Not sure what you mean by he-music, and should be for the sake of it.
Nice review! I'll check this out
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Nice review!
This album is such a nice surprise for me. I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed by the new Textures and Animals as Leaders so I was kind of losing hope for a good groovy metal album this year that I could really sink my teeth into. I'm definitely feeling a solid 4 on this after 3 listens and I could easily see it going up. Just a very fleshed out and well executed album.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Looking forward to listening to this
Digging: Joe Bonamassa - Driving Towards The Daylight Digging: Joe Bonamassa - Driving Towards The Daylight | | | Album Rating: 5 | Sound Off
So good. Been listening to Hail and Plenitude on repeat for 3 weeks now.
Also funny how the review I wrote for this on my website is pretty similar to this :P
Digging: Drudkh - Forgotten Legends Digging: Drudkh - Forgotten Legends | | | Album Rating: 4.5
Holy shit! The album starts great!. Thanks for the review, man. Pos.
Digging: Amenra - Mass IIII Digging: Amenra - Mass IIII | | |
I'm listening to this on soundcloud and it's fucking awesome so far
Digging: Ash Borer - Ash Borer Digging: Ash Borer - Ash Borer
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Listening to this while watching a documentary on golden eagles?
FUCKING ROOOOOOOOOOOOOLZ
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
sounds coo
Digging: Sidi Touré - Koima Digging: Sidi Touré - Koima | | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
this review is great...also needs to be featured for the sake of getting the word on this album out. i feel like this is the kind of thing sputnik would go crazy for.
Digging: Death Grips - The Money Store | | |
Yeah, but I can see people avoiding this simply because this band gets lumped into the "djent" scene
Digging: Amon Tobin - Amon Tobin Digging: Amon Tobin - Amon Tobin
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
Yeah, Deviant's right. A lot of people will shun this because it's got the whole djent thing going. But it's actually a shit tonne better than any other 'djent' releases out there.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Who gives a fuck, their loss.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
If Vildhjarta are not my top album of the year, this album will be. I don't know any ''djent'' band who can mix ambient and heavyness like them. Great band!
| | | Album Rating: 4
Great album, bit late in commenting, but what the hey. Nice review Vooligan! You're so great; I'm such a Vool for you!
Have a pos.;]
Digging: Carl Orff - Carmina Burana Digging: Carl Orff - Carmina Burana | | | Album Rating: 3 | Sound Off
Guitar tones, techniques and songwriting are exact clones of so many other djent bands out there, especially Tesseract. If you like djent, you will love this, because it is done well. I however was expecting something a little more original after some of the hype it had been getting.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off
Haha, Butkuiss; you're a champ.
Monolith; absolutely cannot wait for vildjarta's album to come out. That could very easily top this one.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
Album rules hard. Still not sure how to rate it.
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
Interesting... I remember I really disliked their EP, but this is quite good.
Digging: Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pandora's Pinata Digging: Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pandora's Pinata | | | |
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