Arkhum-Anno Universum

Vendlus
2011

Hailing from Oregon this band managed to secure Jason Walton (Agalloch, Self Spiller, Sculptured) as their mixing and mastering engineer for this their debut album. I never heard of these guys before, but after hearing this album I'll never forget them. It's hard to give them one label because they are over the place. The have elements of both death and black metal and hit on the melodic and technical sides of those styles. Yet everything is going on so fast that they really seem to be doing in numerous directions all at once yet they still hold it together. Your head will be spinning trying to pull in all of the chaotic sounds. Still they never come across as sloppy and every note and beat builds the song up. Now it's just a shame the vocals are not on the same page. The music pushes boundaries while the vocals are very standard even at times a generic style of death metal vocals. The growling tended to be more distracting than anything and that's a shame because the music really needs a style that compliments it. There are some brilliant ideas on this disc, but until they get vocals that on the same level I can't enjoy the music as a whole.