The Pitch: Portland, Oregon band Aseitas ”challenge the mind and punch the gut” with their doozy of a sophomore album False Peace via Lizard Brain Records. FFO: Pyrrhon, Cult Leader, Car Bomb
What I Like: At just shy of an hour and 15 minutes, False Peace is one of my most daunting listening experiences since Warforged’s I: Voice. But just as with that album, Aseitas manage to justify the length with impressively progressive songwriting and a number of styles, volumes, and textures. Some songs, especially in the first half, dive headlong into noisey and highly technical depths of extreme metal on par with the likes of Pyrrhon (don’t miss my review of their latest insanity btw), while others in the latter like “Spite/Sermon” and “Blood Into Oil” venture into more heady and lengthy post-metal territory. A fitting range for a band whose name means a "total autonomy of one's existence” and list King Crimson, Gojira, and Jute Gyte among their influences. Says the band, "We are advancing the most sinister material to date," states guitarist Gage Dean. "'False Peace' needed to be a more punishing and abstract experience – like, if our debut album took bath salts and grew a second set of fangs and scales."
Critiques: It would have been nice to vary up the pacing just a little bit more by shifting the tracklisting a bit. An ebb and flow is generally more interesting to me than this more side A, side B feel. Things do start to come around again for a pretty wicked conclusion around "Behemoth’s Dance" though.
The Verdict: Playing out like a spectacular singularity of Cult Leader, Car Bomb, and once more Pyrrhon and Warforged; False Peace is another remarkable achievement of an album that continues to elevate 2020 as a thrilling first chapter to a new decade in metal. With so much going wrong in the world, at least we get a killer soundtrack to go along with it.
Flight's Fav's: Impermanence, Chrism, Horse Of Turin
- Review by FlightOfIcarus
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