Hard to believe that this masterpiece will be 10 years old next year. Hailing from India, they are one of the high points of the djent bands that came out over 10 years ago. A very ambitious project for their first album as its huge conceptual piece of fours sides split into two parts: Illusion and Chaos. Illusion has Daniel Tompkins from Tesserract who had left the band at this point. Marty Friedman also makes a guest appearance on Catharsis.
Dots kicks things off in epic style and Tompkins voice fits the music perfectly. Order 66 is pure djent heaven as the tune flips from supreme heaviness to beauty in the flick of a guitar pick. Catharsis is next and starts with an epic drum pattern from Anup Sastry, who now bashes the skins for Monuments. Tompkins also shows the harder edge to his vocals as the song weaves its way through numerous phases. It drifts into the following piece, Night, with the beautiful refrain “When Will I Be Home Again”. Aurora is such a great piece of music, killer vocals and harmonies from Dan, and some really heavy chunk from Keshav Dhar on guitar. It flows into a very jazzy middle eight and the end screams of Everybody Dies. My favourite piece from Illusion is the next track, Celestial. I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to gush over this, it’s just an amazing piece that has everything. Absolute crushing guitar riffs and grooves, mixed with the beauty of Dan’s voice. Monster stuff. The first piece concludes with Maeva, a wonderful exercise in how to write a modern Prog/Marla epic. No Cookie Monster vocals in sight, just superb playing from all and the guitar solo here is other worldly.
Side 4 is given over to the second piece, Chaos, and Part 1 Trayus announces its arrival with crushingly heavy guitar and the return of the Cookie Monster with a change of vocalist in Sunneith Revankar. Aphasia starts with a very complex fast odd time groove, which carries the piece all the way through. Insurrection closes out the album and is as extreme as the title suggests. I’m at a loss to see how the drummer would still be alive after performing this live. Incredible drumming!
I do like the way they have split this up with different vocal styles that show a light and dark vibe. The other album I reviewed today was Manowar, and forty years apart there is no comparison. Metal has changed so much in that time it’s unrecognizable. I love this album heaps and it gets 10/10 from The Grooveman.
