(Andy Synn brings you part 1 of a 2 part review, with the second to follow… later this year)
To start things off I should probably let you know that I’m lucky enough to have heard both parts of the upcoming Amiensus double-album, Reclamation, and thus my perspective on it is – inevitably – going to be somewhat shaped by my experience of the whole thing, rather than just Part 1, which I’m reviewing here.
Hell, when I first got my hands on it I was under the impression I’d be writing about both Part 1 and Part 2 simultaneously, only to learn later that the band had decided to split the release in two.
That’s not a bad thing though – in fact there’s been several occasions where I’d have preferred other bands do the same (it’s something that I wish Mastodon had done, for example, with Hushed & Grim, albeit for somewhat different reasons that I don’t have time to go into here).
If nothing else, it actually makes my job a little easier, as I can fully concentrate on just one half of this epic (in multiple senses of the word) undertaking, while also sneaking in a few tantalising teasers about what to expect from Part 2 later this year.
So, without further ado, let’s begin, shall we?
Reclamation, Part 1 is the band’s first album (their fourth overall) in four years, which means that Amiensus have a lot of work to do here to, ahem, reclaim their position as one of the most promising Progressive Black Metal bands in the USA (and beyond).
But two things quickly become clear when listening to this record – 1. this is easily the group’s best album yet, demonstrating that they more than deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as their more prominent peers (and I’m not just referring to the likes of Agalloch, Alcest, etc, but also bands like Borknagar and Enslaved), and 2. Amiensus clearly have no interest in reclaiming anything except the simple joy of making music.
That’s not to say that Reclamation, Part 1 is a particularly happy album – though it certainly has its moments of bleak beauty – yet even at its most hostile (such as the vibrant, visceral “Vermillion God of War”) or its most haunting (as exemplified by the Pink Floyd-meets-Panopticon melodic melancholy of “Sun and Moon”), what really shines through is the band’s unashamed love for the simple act of creation, the joyful expression of sensation and emotion, both good and bad, through their art.
And I have no hesitation in calling this a work of art, as the ambition and creativity on display across these fifty-two minutes – weaving together fearsome metallic fury and folksome melodic magic, interspersed with passages of gorgeously gloomy ambience and desolately doomy atmosphere (and that’s just in the space of opener “Blink of the Moment”), all topped off with an emotively lyrical, borderline spiritual, array of scorching screams and soaring cleans – makes the entire album (even considering the fact that it’s just one half of a pair) feel that much greater, and that much grander, than the simple sum of its parts.
This is true whether the songs are closer to five minutes (like the spellbinding, Insomnium-esque “Reverie”) or more than seven (with both the brooding introspection and blistering intensity of “Senses Amplified” – all kudos to drummer Chris Piette for his stellar performance here – and the ethereal-yet-elemental strains of powerhouse penultimate track “Spoken Into Will” going above and beyond), and regardless of how many different moving parts (such as the frequent inclusion of wailing strings and weeping synths) are involved.
And the reason it all works so well is because Amiensus are clearly in possession of an innate (albeit, hard-won) sense of balance and dynamic which allows for an effortlessly organic flow of elements and ideas, not just within each individual track (the bombastic blend of epic atmosphere, primal power, and raw emotion which makes up “A Consciousness Throughout Time”, for example, wouldn’t have sounded out of place back in the Isa/Ruun era) but across the album’s many peaks and valleys, from its darkest depths to its highest heights.
If the band do make one slight misstep on Reclamation, Part 1 it’s the decision to end things with intricately-layered instrumental closer “Transcendence Through Grief”, as while the track is by no means a bad one, it can’t help but feel a little anticlimactic coming as it does on the heels of its absolutely outstanding predecessor.
That being said, the inclusion of “Transcendence Through Grief” makes much more sense in the context of the wider double-album, providing as it does a much-needed space for the listener to calm and collect themselves before forging ahead with the equally brilliant second half of this mammoth artistic endeavour… but you’ll have to wait a little while longer to hear more about that!