AFFASIA “Adrift in Remorse” on Transcending Records
by Kyle Kryst
Musical composition is obviously the backbone of any decent band, so when a group mixes up sub-genres in an original and stylized way the outcome is always innovative as well as structurally sound and of interest. “Fusing elements from their diverse influences, AFFASIA play guitar driven dark melodic metal with elements of doom, death, darkwave, shoegaze, atmospheric, and even classical music.”
This dark/atmospheric metal band hailing from Richmond, VA, known as Affasia, released their 4-track EP
“Adrift in Remorse” as of February 23 of this year via Transcending Records. Their defined musical structure makes a kickass mix up of sub-genres throughout each track, which in turn makes their whole album flow even more fluidly in my opinion.
A crashing of cymbals breaks the silence to start off the intro track titled “Another Host”. Slow guitar riffs with an intermittent bass line starts to form out with a matching drum beat, as a spaced out keyboard pattern softly makes its presence known leading some spoken power vocals to make their entrance following the keys. Death growls, that are nicely low pitched and grimy enter the mix following the guitar pattern, which is in turn slow and extremely foreboding. A melodic and short instrumental break slowly takes over until some elongated clean power vocals take the place of the growl. An intermittent keyboard pattern enters and exits a few times up until some short melodic guitar lines are backed by more death growls into another short break, which then transitions back into elongated power vocals up exiting. The tempo picks up slightly for more elongated and spaced out death growls as backing. Elongated keyboard tones backing a keyboard pattern then slowly fades the song out, which leads to the next track “Dissolute”. An elongated bell chime sounding synth starts fading in with an elongated keyboard pattern backing it up. Guitar chugs backed by a drum pattern slowly starts building up in
intensity to have clean spaced out power vocals join in. Raspy backing vocals join in for some end words of the vocal lines up until another drum pattern leads into an instrumental break with an audio clip and synths backing it up. The drums pick up while the keyboard join back in, which seems to be the main focus for the track. The intensity of the instruments then swells down to have clean power vocals take back over, up until it picks back up with an elongated line of death growls, which leads into a slow tempo and low intensity instrumental break. Elongated and spaced out death growls start picking back up with clean power vocals backing them up to the point of a melodic instrumental break picking back up. The drums then pick up in intensity with backing guitar and bass to slowly fade out the track.
Following is the track titled “Brittle Sentiment”. A chuggy extended guitar line opens the track as a clang of the cymbals and a drum pattern forms for this instrumental opening. Clean spaced out power vocals start with a slow drum pattern with intermittent snare slams and bass and guitar lines, as a mixture of clean power vocals with repeated end lines done in growls open up. This track is spaced out and mellow for the most part, with drum focused patterns, intermittent guitar and bass lines and synth keys. Repeated vocal variety is a present force as well. The intensity gradually starts to rise with an instrumental break backed by violin sounding synths until a melodic guitar pattern starts to pick up the tempo for a longer break. Melodic guitar takes back over with a spaced out riff backed by drums as death growls are slowly spaced out. The intensity starts to then gradually go down with the outro’s instrumental break into the last track of the EP titled “As You Never Were”. A lethargic bass line follows a matching melodic guitar pattern and drums to slowly open up the track, with an echoed and effected verse of spoken lyrics starting to form. As the guitar and bass chugs start to make their presence, a slow
and foreboding release of death growls slowly get spaced out to back up the instruments. A keyboard pattern enters the mix while the growls transitions back into effected clean vocals to take over vocally. Melodic lines of guitar start to overpower the instruments with the clean vocals, up until an instrumental break which takes over shortly. This then transitions back to chugs and drums, which are the main focus, with a solid keyboard pattern and spaced out death growls backing the mix. A transitioning back to lethargic bass and drums, with melodic guitar lines and clean vocals occurs until the guitar starts to take over the instruments again with a release of foreboding spaced out death growls. A long melodic guitar focused instrumental break with synth and slow drum beat backing takes back over, as elongated and spaced out lines of death growls follow the elongated melodic guitar lines with intermittent keys. The vocals are then slowly struck out to lead a melodic instrumental break with an awesome keyboard pattern to fade out the album.
Even though this was only a 4-track EP, Affasia was able to make up for this fact by not only producing longer compositions than the average band, but were able to make them structurally interesting by making their own signature blend of genres. This EP was a trip from start to finish, with audio clips added in, effected vocals, keyboard patterns intermittently thrown in, and the altogether blend of doom, death, atmospheric, hardcore, and even some orchestral influence. I always look for a unique mix-up of genres while listening to death metal, and this was just that. I highly recommend checking out their album “Adrift in Remorse”.
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