(This is DGR‘s review of the latest record by the Argentinian melodic death metal band Plaguestorm, out now on the Noble Demon label.)
Heavy metal fantasy draft is always fun and the proliferation of projects with the ability to do so has increased tremendously in recent years. No doubt a combination of musicians using the internet to find each other and the more likely possibility of constantly being trapped inside, you’re now seeing a ton of projects wherein musicians from all over the world are combined into one thing via session work and constant guest appearances.
We have musicians now who’re quickly approaching a point in history where they may have more guest/session appearances and releases to their name than they’ve got material with the band they’re most famous for being in. This has also been a pretty big movement within melodeath circles as we’re now multiple generations removed from the classics and old guard and well into an era of bands that were inspired by the keyboard/groove metal happy early-aughts of the genre that were built around big riffs/big choruses with just enough of ye-olde Gotenburg two-step to keep things ‘dangerous’.
One such project is the brainchild of Argentinian musician Sebastián Pastor, who has been operating under the name Plaguestorm since 2015 – and not the first Plaguestorm we’ve covered over the years. In the time since, he’s recruited quite an array of musicians to join him on his diseased journey for two albums and two EPs, and the latest release from said project is the one you see now, the three-song Empty Eyes EP, which came out in October via Noble Demon.
The roster this time sees Sebastián grouping up with vocalist Okko Solanterä, drummer Eugene Ryabchenko, and guitarist Diego Martinez for a surprisingly lengthy three-song jam that starts out at close to four minutes and then steadily increases all the way to six by the time things close out. You might even recognize the first two songs on the Empty Eyes EP, as Sebastián and Noble Demon slowly lifted the curtain on “Thrown Into The Void” and “Garden Of Fire” in a two-month lead-up to the EP resting before you.
“Empty Eyes”, being the beefiest of the songs present here and also the one the EP was titled after, does much with its six minutes. If you’re familiar with melodic death metal then it’s tempting to see a song length of six minutes and immediately brush it off as mid-tempo wandering – which the genre is prone to do – but “Empty Eyes” bounces between a lot of different pacings here.
The opening segment of the song is about as furious as the four minutes of “Thrown Into The Fire”, and when the song does drift into chugging territory, there’s a strong enough guitar lead to keep your interest posted. The solo segment closer to the end walks an intriguing trail as well, favoring hammering drums to set the mood before slowing down into territory not far from the world of folk-metal and its swaying rhythms. “Empty Eyes” by its nature and run-time is the most dynamic of the three here.
“Thrown Into The Void” has a singular focus on going high-speed for a big portion of its time up until its clean-sung chorus, and since it’s the first song of the EP, that makes sense. At the moment, metal doesn’t care much for the grand, atmospheric build up, preferring to launch a foot into the listener’s pants instead and hope that wakes you up enough to catch your attention. “Thrown Into The Void” spins many plates during its four minutes, which is something that Plaguestorm does throughout the whole EP, as it seems Sebastián is determined to knock down as many of the melodeath roadside pylons as he can in the fifteen or so minutes asked of you here.
The one thing that can be brought up with Empty Eyes is that even for its short run time it does hew very close to a lot of melodeath standards; everything at play here is very recognizable. Playing it close to the chest is understandable given how spread across the globe a project like this can get – one mastermind handling nearly everything can sometimes feel like you’re watching the building blocks of something being hammered into place. “Gardens Of Fire” is really where you’ll notice this.
The drums hit hard as hell but when you read Plaguestorm‘s bio and see that there’s a clear throughline to bands like Dark Tranquillity and Hypocrisy in terms of influence, “Gardens Of Fire” is likely going to be the one you think of. It even has the bigger sound-wall production that Hypocrisy favored on their last few releases.
Plaguestorm becomes something of a comfort food because of that. Melodeath fans will be comfortable as hell here, quickly nestling themselves within the blanket of the three songs present, but this also feels very much like a continuation of where Plaguestorm had been on prior releases. It’s no grand introduction to the group full of banners and mission, just a rockin’ progress check to confirm that yes, there’s plenty of quick moving guitar and bumper-beating rhythms at play. But it also cozies up to its influences enough that it’s just as likely that whoever provides vocals for the song – even if it’s unintentional – will likely make that song sound a whole hell of a lot like it belongs to their band instead.
There is certainly a huge flash of inspiration and potential laying within Plaguestorm – projects rarely reach two albums and two EPs without something to them – and Empty Eyes pulls back the curtain on that again and again. The potential for something super concrete and able to launch the listener through a wall in the future is something that could very well lay down the line for Plaguestorm.
https://plaguestorm1.bandcamp.com/album/empty-eyes-ep
https://www.facebook.com/plaguestormarg