Elegis
Kultus
Liber Khaos Productions
Kultus is a tyrannical death metal (Luminous Pantheon), you can sense strength in music of the band, quickly after they started to play intro and the song Apollyon Ave with loud choruses... There are faster, cacophony fragments in songs that remind me of Vader and Morbid Angel. Music consists of some crafty and layered guitar fragments with atmospheric leads (I Am A Shadow Of Thorns) that still sound very much like a crushing death metal (Deus Arcana). Songs of Elegis have well weighted amount of complexity - some dissonant riffs are mixed with some in your face death metal - Luminous Pantheon. Elegis also creates sort of dominion for superbly heavy and ritualistic death metal (Kultus). You always can feel a breath of the beast upon your shoulder when they play those very brutal and blistering riffs, just like in songs Havoc or Aeon Omega (more atmospheric death metal in the end of the track).
I have always being hooked by keyboard ideas in music of Elegis. Album does not have much of these this time, but the ones that are there in the music, in form of dark orchestrations, or short, satanic choirs or, like in ambient instrumental track Anthem To The Dead Ones - these music ideas could be used in movie soundtracks for The Lord Of The Rings, The Omen or in other ventures...
Growling vocals on this album sound very raw and imperative, at the same time, very cold and on fire. The production of drums is less real and natural, a bit too much tweaked out in process of mastering them, which made the fast beats sound like the rocks rumbling off the cliff, something you can hear on the latest Morbid Angel album as well.
I think this album sounds like a modern death metal with black metal flavour (dark, heavy hooks and solid guitar shredding in Deus Arcana). It's not always easy to revive the old death metal flame in songs when the production of the album, as in this one, seems a bit too clean. Although I must admit that Elegis consistently develops their death metal which results in having some of original music ideas for their songs. Their brutal and atmospheric death metal delivers plenty of diversity, mainly when your focus is on guitar work. After a few records that the band has released, I think that Elegis has their own death metal style that they embrace album after album, without compromising brutality of music at all.
My interpretation of the album title, after listening to all the songs, is a constant search for divine energy within yourself (you can assume that the word is Kultus), not in destructive and parasitic religious institutions, created by humanity itself for their own misery, doomsdays and self-destruction.
I have always being hooked by keyboard ideas in music of Elegis. Album does not have much of these this time, but the ones that are there in the music, in form of dark orchestrations, or short, satanic choirs or, like in ambient instrumental track Anthem To The Dead Ones - these music ideas could be used in movie soundtracks for The Lord Of The Rings, The Omen or in other ventures...
Growling vocals on this album sound very raw and imperative, at the same time, very cold and on fire. The production of drums is less real and natural, a bit too much tweaked out in process of mastering them, which made the fast beats sound like the rocks rumbling off the cliff, something you can hear on the latest Morbid Angel album as well.
I think this album sounds like a modern death metal with black metal flavour (dark, heavy hooks and solid guitar shredding in Deus Arcana). It's not always easy to revive the old death metal flame in songs when the production of the album, as in this one, seems a bit too clean. Although I must admit that Elegis consistently develops their death metal which results in having some of original music ideas for their songs. Their brutal and atmospheric death metal delivers plenty of diversity, mainly when your focus is on guitar work. After a few records that the band has released, I think that Elegis has their own death metal style that they embrace album after album, without compromising brutality of music at all.
My interpretation of the album title, after listening to all the songs, is a constant search for divine energy within yourself (you can assume that the word is Kultus), not in destructive and parasitic religious institutions, created by humanity itself for their own misery, doomsdays and self-destruction.
Tracklist:
1. Apollyon Ave
2. I Am A Shadow Of Thorns
3. Luminous Pantheon
4. Kultus
5. Aeon Omega
6. Deus Arcana
7. Havoc
8. Anthem To The Dead Ones
1. Apollyon Ave
2. I Am A Shadow Of Thorns
3. Luminous Pantheon
4. Kultus
5. Aeon Omega
6. Deus Arcana
7. Havoc
8. Anthem To The Dead Ones
Review by Slawek Migacz
Added: 04.12.2020
Added: 04.12.2020
