Search - Cormorant :: Metazoa

One of the best metal releases of 2009

Death Metal Man of Steel | 12/17/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A really brilliant combination of black metal, melodic death metal, progressive metal, folk metal, NWBHM, and much, much more. While this potluck of seemingly disparate genres may sound pretentious, one listen to the album will dispel any such thoughts. The truth is, Metazoa is one of the most effective and original metal albums I've heard in a good while, and you really owe it to yourself to pick it up.



There is so much at play here that it would be difficult to specifically characterize the sound of the album. Each track is a work in itself. One can rock out to the melodeath headbanger "Blood on the Cornfields", space to the surreal beauty of "Hole in the Sea", or simply float away to the acoustic "Voices of the Mountain". The ten-minute masterpiece "Hanging Gardens" even flirts with doom by the end.



The guitars are heavy and well-played, with some awesome lead work that at first sounded quite out of place in an extreme metal record, the drumming is sufficiently fast (and, dare I say, rather laid-back), and the bass does a really excellent job dancing around the guitar lines in ways reminiscent of Cynic. The vocals range from high-pitched black metal shrieks to low death metal growls, to occasional clean vocals.



One last thing to consider is the lyrics. They aren't just good. They're greeeaaaat! In fact, I highly suggest spending your first few listens of the album with a copy of the lyrics in hand, because they really add a new dimension to the music you won't want to miss out on. Bassist/vocalist Arthur von Nagel is quite the poet, whether writing about historical topics such as Maximilien Robespierre's Reign of Terror in France in "Uneasy Lies the Head" or Tibetan ritual dissection of corpses in "Sky Burial".



Basically, buy this album. And actually buy it, because they're an unsigned band and the cover artwork is beautiful (and folds out across all three panels in ways you can't see from pictures online.



Recommended for fans of Opeth, Primordial, Enslaved, Amon Amarth, Cynic, Slough Feg, metal in general, and Bob Dylan."