Review Summary: Genre tag THIS.
Downfall Of Gaia are a really hard band to place in one specific genre. Their second full-length album, Aeon Unveils The Thrones Of Decay, carries on the experimentation they dabbled with on their debut LP Suffocating In The Swarm Of Cranes. Dissonant black metal, post metal, doom metal, and sludgy, hardcore elements pervade both albums but where their debut was a bit raw, this new LP has been refined, re-tooled, and re-focused to take advantage of the band's amazing talents and superb originality.
Noisy guitars, crushing rhythms, inquisitive melodies, and agonizing, tortured screams are the foundations on Aeon Unveils The Thrones Of Decay. Unique and innovative musical forms really hold my interest as the album trudges from beginning to end. The LP is a concept album about time and the blending and transferring of all the elements in the music is seamless. The emotional ebb and flow from riding the wave of this dark and dense music portrays a world of rustic, decaying and alienating atmosphere. Blast beat drums to double-bass drums to focused post metal aesthetics to back-breaking, almost stand-still doom metal black holes are impressively executed all the while holding a pattern of concise and really well designed song structures. Hardcore and crustpunk verses will also be discovered, reinforcing my prediction that it will be hard to take all this in during the first couple of listens. Staying with it is almost mandatory. Most of the songs are around 10 minutes long, a method to Aeon Unveils The Thrones Of Decay's madness and persistence will award satisfaction eventually in the end.
Their are two vocalists on the album but they mostly sound the same. No clean singing, both bark out desolate shrieks of agony, doing damage just beneath the wall of sound created by the instrumentation. Downfall Of Gaia are signed to Metal Blade Records, so expecting top-notch production isn't out of the question. In fact, each instrument is perfectly sharpened for pinpointing at anytime. I found myself focusing my attention on a different aspect of the music during each listen, reaffirming the album's extended replay value.
Their aren't many downsides to the album and you really have to poke around to find any. Their are a couple of all-instrumental songs, one being the third song, "Ascending The Throne" and it's a bit of a head scratcher: a tremolo picked, two minute guitar interlude that halts the album flow a bit. Also, I love ambiance and "awkward post metal silence", as my daughter calls it, but unfortunately there isn't a lot of it on Aeon Unveils The Thrones Of Decay. A straight-forward concept is the overall sticking point of the compositions and it works but I love how electronics and programming can elevate atmosphere in detailed music like this. Altar Of Plagues Teethed Glory And Injury is a perfect example.
Ultimately however, Downfall Of Gaia have created one of the most original sounds to date. I am really impressed with how they incorporate many different facets of music into one layered and cohesive record. Again, in a time when metal music is in need of different approaches and projects, Aeon Unveils The Thrones Of Decay is exactly the kind of hyperbole I am looking for. An introspective about the apocalyptic nature of time, Downfall Of Gaia are instilling a new brand of metallic metal on top of the infused building blocks of neocrust and post black metal.
