Uneven Structure
Februus


4.5
superb

Review

by Vooligan USER (32 Reviews)
October 26th, 2011 | 646 replies


Release Date: 2011 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Februus is an outstanding record, finding the perfect balance between intense heaviness and beautiful atmosphere.

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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user ratings (519)
4
excellent
other reviews of this album
Cysquatch (4)
In the face of a rabid demographic eagerly awaiting an improvement on Meshuggah's oft imitated formu...



Comments:Add a Comment 
Vooligan
October 26th 2011


3541 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

Streaming on Soundcloud.



My first review in aaaages

jimmykidd
October 26th 2011


640 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

nice review mate. this album is incredible and definitely one of the best of 2011.

manicmonkey
October 26th 2011


490 Comments


"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

Kubrick
October 26th 2011


793 Comments


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.

bloc
October 26th 2011


70678 Comments


Looking forward to listening to this

trilo
October 26th 2011


6580 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0 | 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

xenocide.
October 26th 2011


1268 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Holy shit! The album starts great!. Thanks for the review, man. Pos.

ITsHxCTOASTER
October 26th 2011


2520 Comments


I'm listening to this on soundcloud and it's fucking awesome so far

bloc
October 26th 2011


70678 Comments


Listening to this while watching a documentary on golden eagles?


FUCKING ROOOOOOOOOOOOOLZ

AlexTM510
October 27th 2011


1473 Comments

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.

Deviant.
Staff Reviewer
October 27th 2011


32288 Comments


Yeah, but I can see people avoiding this simply because this band gets lumped into the "djent" scene

Vooligan
October 27th 2011


3541 Comments

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.

bloc
October 27th 2011


70678 Comments


Who gives a fuck, their loss.

Monolith
October 27th 2011


18 Comments

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!

Butkuiss
October 27th 2011


7662 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

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.;]

Philalethes
October 27th 2011


245 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0 | 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.

Vooligan
October 27th 2011


3541 Comments

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.

xenocide.
October 27th 2011


1268 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Album rules hard. Still not sure how to rate it.

greg84
Emeritus
October 27th 2011


7654 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

Interesting... I remember I really disliked their EP, but this is quite good.

xenocide.
October 27th 2011


1268 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

Now I know Sorry greg, but you've underrated this.



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