EPECTASE "Astres"

EPECTASE

“Astres”


Sorry about getting to this one so late, it kinda snuck up on me…

If a band does really long, really weird songs, chances are good they are on the I, Voidhanger label. This outsider imprint can find some really amazing bands...and some unlistenable garbage. EPECTASE, hailing from the avant-garde metal hotbed of France, are generally on the positive side of the ledger. In fact, some of the sounds created on “Astres” are downright mind-boggling. But they have their really pretentious, head-scratching moments as well.

They are mainly drawing from three distinct sources: extreme black metal, very technical progressive metal and mellow, almost relaxing prog rock. With some odd noisiness tossed in here and there. All in all, it works well and they create some truly massive sounds. At some point, every song will drop down into gentle and melodic prog. Surprisingly, songs can even end on the more subdued note, such as opener “As He Runs Towards The Stars”. This tends to keep things unpredictable.

But there is a ton of screaming fast black metal as well, with harsh vocals to match. Which is a good place to mention that the vocals are also all over the place. There is a definite OPETH touch to EPECTASE’s songwriting but that is by no means the only influence

The real corker is the 15 minute plus “Entering the Domain of the Solar Sovereign”...this one has got some absolutely MONSTER riffs in it, in both slow and fast mode. On the other end of the scale, “Solar Winds-Climax” starts with bizarre, headscratching free jazz sounding guitar noise that drags on an awful long time before a prog metal tone finally arrives. And the 18 minute plus “La Mer Pourpre” is just too damn long, period.

A challenge to your concepts of what metal can be…

I, VOIDHANGER

EPECTASE