Review Summary: Summoner's Circle arguably learns from past albums and illustrates a concise picture. This is a focused execution of dark synths, death-doom, and blackened death metal influences.
Coming up on their 3rd release, Summoner's Circle makes another concept album about the eldritch and the mysterious. This time Chaos Vector revolves around Cthulhu, the ancient one himself, as one can see by the bleak and foggy album art. The album title refers to the slow trajectory of his presence, looming ever closer to our realm, causing darkness and havoc to erupt. This theme pairs well with the overall sonic choices that the band utilizes.
Chaos Vector has a mixed abrasive sound, combining flavors of melodic black metal, death metal, and traditional doom metal. On top of that, their musical choices reflect some progressive metal values. A few of the songs are a bit lengthy, showcasing various tempo shifts and different musical sequences as the songs progress. The band emphasizes plenty of synth/piano melodies that color the background with spooky, epic atmospheres. There are obvious influences from other bands like Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth, however, Summoner’s Circle writes their compositions a bit more on the progressive side than their blackened counterparts. They showcase riffs and guitar tones that some believe sound similar to Candlelight Years Opeth, and they mix in the occasional percussive, high-gain chugs that Gojira is known for.
In researching Chaos Vector's critical reception I'm conflicted to see that the album has gotten a fairly lukewarm, even negative response. Diabolus in Muzaka from Angry Metal Guy in particular said this album is "progressive" by name only, and does not really do anything super creative or technical to justify its label. I see where he has gripes about the lack of impact that a lot of the instrumental snippets have. However, this is still certainly a progressive piece of music, compositionally speaking. Essentially, the band writes their songs to be listened to and judged in their entirety, as opposed to listening in-depth to shorter durations of music. This is something that can be fulfilling if the band writes their compositions densely as you can pick through the layers of instrumentation. However, doing this with Summoner's Circle can leave one underwhelmed because of the relative simplicity that they write with.
And yes, there are many sections that are "meat and potatoes" when listened to under a magnifying glass, but these can be considered small parts arranged in larger, more complicated songs. Summoner's Circle utilizes these moments of simplicity both to display their strong sense of melody, and also to compound them into dynamic and unconventional song structures. For this band, seeing the bigger picture is key.
Songs like "Vessel" combine many smaller movements that may be very straightforward when listened to in isolation, but are used to contrast one another to form a dynamic end product. The climax of this song is a satisfying release of black metal tremolo picking, blastbeats, thick, textured growls, slow ominous riffs, and eerie guitar solos which are very satisfying in unison. And they pull this all off without dropping the ball when it comes to the song's cohesion. Essentially, this intense, doom-flavored track succeeds because it emphasizes the strong elements in the smaller components to become greater than the sum of its parts. Both "Vessel" and the previous track, "Of Black Horizons" work well to establish the album's evil, ritualistic sound.
Their riffs fall all over the extreme metal spectrum and are often on the more technical side which makes them relatively creative and progressive. Additionally, the band does well in harmonizing most of their band members around a certain rhythm or melody, especially in the drumming, riffs, and synthesizers. A good example of this would be five minutes into "The Beyond", where everything comes together wonderfully. There are even the occasional syncopated, down-tuned, progressive, almost-groove-metal riffs that Gojira fans are used to. A couple of examples are in the title track "Chaos Vector", or "Apostasy" which also has a juicy breakdown in the middle of the track.
Towards the back end of the album is where the band saves their most epic material, especially in the song "Terminus Egress". This song showcases operatic female vocal chorus on top of distant male clean vocals, contrasting with more energetic drum fills, and gothic guitar chords. This song builds up to a violin section and a guitar solo. This would have been a good way to finish off the album, but it lingers on for another two songs, which are not at all bad in and of themselves, rather it is their placement that feels off. And as cool as "Terminus Egress" is on paper, to me, it didn't feel as epic as it should have been. Perhaps because of its placement, or that its performances needed another take or two. Or maybe it is because the instrumentals in most sections on this song, like with much of the album, are tame and somewhat underwhelming, which is shameful for the climax of the album.
This seems like a better time than ever to transition into the downfalls of this album. When one decides to listen to Chaos Vector's instrumental density in-depth, one can be easily underwhelmed by its simplicity. Prog fans may be especially disappointed with the lack of technicality. Admittedly, I might be saying this from an unconscious bias against doom metal, but I find a lot of the band's riffs to be generic, even if they are good riffs. Also, when I said earlier that the band harmonizes most of their band members well, I was explicitly excluding the bass performance which I forgot even existed until that point.
But for what it's worth, this is a pretty good album. Summoner's Circle delivers a spooky, somewhat gritty atmosphere, the album is aesthetically unified and focused on its goal, and they do a solid job at establishing their own sound. They write a lot of memorable riffs and harmonize their melodies well with the harsh vocals and synths. And the drumming is very admirable. Perhaps it is meant for people with an appreciation for progressive music, but also have the patience for doom metal stuff.
