Agnes Vein: Soulship

Every week, several new metal releases hit the shelves. Many of these albums are pretty good, but they get lost in the larger shuffle of competition. This is one of those albums. Originally released earlier this year, Soulship is the second release from Agnes Vein, a strong Greek black metal band that's been going at it for over ten years. I'm not sure why they don't have more full-length albums to their name, but the band sounds good and writes strong songs.

The best thing about this album is the sound of the instruments. Even though the band plays within black metal conventions, they sometimes alternate between the speed of thrash metal and the slow deliberateness of drone. I especially enjoyed the moments when I could listen to the instruments do their thing, especially the guitars. The vocals are good, if somewhat undistinguished. I like the style of black metal vocals, but I can't help but feel that too many good bands rely too much on a limited vocal range. I'm not saying they should switch to clean vocals, only that the rasp is sometimes less interesting than it could be.

The best (and the longest) track on this album, for me, was "To Know the God Within." I liked it because it was heavy on instrumental parts, highlighting especially the lead guitar. This track also establishes the dominant mood of the album, that slow near-drone sound that makes up most of the songs. When the vocals appear at around the half-way mark, they are relatively clean but very moody, drawing on the rasped sound for effect. If the whole album was like this track, I would listen to it over and over again. Be sure to check out "To Know the God Within."

Track Listing:
1. To Know the God Within
2. March of the Netherworld
3. Chaos Cauldron
4. Soulship
5. Eventus

Added: October 17th 2013
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 1855
Language: english

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