KROSIS “SOLEM VATEM” Released March 9th via Unique Leader Records
Review by KYLE KRYST
Stepping away from the cookie cutter definition of death metal, the progressive deathcore band Krosis adds some fresh twists to what can sometimes be a stale or generic genre. “The album, which was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Brandon Scurlark of Eltar Studios and features guest appearances from the likes of John Robert from The Last Ten Seconds of Life and Duncan Bentley of Vulvodynia. Solem Vatem contains 12 genre bending tracks and attempt to push the boundaries of what music fans think deathcore is capable of.”
*
Krosis is set to release their newest full length album “Solem Vatem” on March 9th via Unique Leader Records. This newest album really seems to push the envelope for what is expected in a deathcore band by mixing genres, while adding their own style into it. What they ended up with is a blend of technical death metal, progressive hardcore, and even some orchestral compositions, which just scream to be together in my opinion. Guitarist Brandon Scurlark said of this brilliant effort, “This album is not only a step up from any of our previous releases, but it’s a perfect display of what we feel our music should be and the direction we want to go in from this point on. From tranquil and beautiful clean sections to sludgy disgusting vocals and hard-hitting riffs, we feel like this album will be a unique listening experience for anyone that comes across it”, which I agree with completely.
*
Opening up the album is an instrumental track titled “Disclosure”, with what sounds like a huge influence from Born of Osiris. This track starts the album off with some super spacey/cosmos induced synths, until a melodic guitar riff starts up and a solid drum beat is thrown into the mix. Echoed and effected vocals are utilized as well, which adds an extremely trance-like state upon the listener, until it slowly fades out. The next track “Melting Point” then seems to immediately transition from the previous song, and adds interest to the album for me since most bands don’t seem to utilize this transitioning. A full assault on instruments and vocals start right off the bat, as blast-beat instrumental patterns with a subtle spacing out of vocals leads it off. High pitch synths are added in with an interchanging melodic guitar riff, with slight effects, reverb and glitchy repeats, added onto the vocals. A couple of different instrumental breaks open the track up, which include some very melodic patterns. The melodic guitar then gets backed by clean vocals for their bridge, and the instruments continue on to transition back into blast-beats, with vocal variety of cleans, grimy growls, and mid tone screams throughout the track. The synths once again definitely have a Born of Osiris feel to them. Next up is “Void Fracture”, in which a fat chuggy guitar riff opens it up. Chuggy bass and low toned drums then make their way in, as some solid death
growls join in with some double bass pedal power. A spaced out delivery of vocals is utilized until some rapidly delivered melodic guitar riffs form an instrumental break. The instrumental tempo slows back down for a mirrored release of low and slow growls. The main influence of this track has to be deathcore centered, with extremely brutal guitar chugs for the breakdown, and throughout the rest. Spacey echoed synths are then thrown in with the heavy chugs and drums and transitions back into just synths to fade it out.
*
A mixture of very spacey and Sumerian sounding effected synths chime in a swelling manner to initiate the beginning of “Buoyancy”. A seemingly synthetic drum beat joins the mix until some guitars and drums begin to pick up the tempo. Chuggier patterns then start to form with spaced out and elongated growls and shrieks backing it up, until some more elongated guitar riffs start to space out the the track into slight breaks. Instrumental variety was harnessed by some intricate slides and picking on the chuggy guitar riffs, as well as the use of synths in their bridge and breaks. A solid delivery of guitar chugs were also a highlight throughout this segment of the album. “Emigrate” adds a fresh twist for the listener, as a drum pattern gradually fades into the song to break the couple seconds of silence in between tracks. Once the drums are fully in, they immediately jump up with intensity with a slight synth backing. A slight pause is initiated and then a full out assault of instruments and vocals kicks the song into gear. A melodic guitar riff is thrown in intermittently to fill in the heavily synth induced drums and chugs to back up the vocalist until a slight instrumental break is formed. The tempo then slows down with the synths up to the transitioning back into a rapid instrumental pattern, with a vocal variety of shrieks and growls. The tempo rises and falls a couple more times with a very solid breakdown in between, until a very melodic ending with elongated strums leading it to its closing.
*
This next track “Apathos Vacant” is a prime example of how they are saying to hell with the average death metal parameters, and decided to infuse their own unique twist to it. Echoed intercom static starts it off as someone starts to give a dark speech with added sound effects strewn into the background, up to the point when a synthetic Sumerian sounding horn with a slow impending and intermittent drum beat forms. This then changes to a trancey synthesized drum beat picking up the tempo, until the rest of the instruments join in with an elongated scream from the vocalist. Slowly spaced, yet extremely rapid instrument strikes form with the slowed and brutal delivery of vocals. The tempo and intensity gradually pick up as interchanging patterns of guitar slides and chugs form. A synthesized bell effect joins the fold with masterfully spaced out growls, up to the point of the tempo of the instruments greatly picking back up, with melodic guitar focused breaks strewn throughout. The melodic guitar patterns, synths, and vocal structure are a main highlight of this track with an exemplary variety of clean power vocals, grimy deep growls, and solid mid-tone screams. The synth backed vocals transitions back into blast-beat instrumental delivery for a while until the tempo slowly crawls into some tranquil synths, including chiming bells and swelling synthetic strings, until a synthetic flute pattern backed by sounds of rushing water takes over to fade everything out.
*
A synthesized bell chime pattern opens the track as the drums slowly fade in to initiate the next track “Apathos Renaissance”, which seems to utilize effects from the outro of the last track in the intro of this one, building a sense of continuity, which also adds to their musical composition. Once the drums are fully into the track, the vocals also join in with spread out lines of high and low pitched vocals. Guitar chugs are used intermittently with their drum pattern up until a melodic guitar riff enters the mix with some more glorious synths. An ethereal feeling is then induced into the listener throughout the melodic instrumental break via their composition. A transition is made again into a rapid fire delivery of instruments focused with chugs and grimy growls up into a fast and heavy break. Some more trading off of foreboding chugs and insanely melodic guitar riffs are exchanged prior to the instruments slowly fading out into a stretched out synth closing. Following this is “Immolation Fist”, in which an extremely fast drum beat with effected guitar strums puts the wheels into motion. Quickly spoken yet spaced out vocals join with a slaughtering of double-bass pedal and other drum strikes as a melodic guitar structure also kicks into gear. Musical variety is utilized in this track as well as some more bell synths are included with the other instruments and a vocal variety of squeals and grimy lows are used. Multiple short instrumental breaks are intertwined throughout, and a consistent assault of instruments and vocals are belted out up into a long and quickly paced instrumental break. This gradually fades out with an elongated strum from guitar, that then picks back up for a couple lines of vocal growls into another gradual fading out of the song.
*
Next up is an extremely solid instrumental track, “God Rays”, which gives the listener a little breather as they are put into a trance-like state through their exquisite structuring of the track. A pattern from a keyboard like synth slowly opens it up with a couple of barely audible lines of vocals. An ethereal sounding synth scheme gradually picks up with the drums and melodic guitar until the synths are mirrored to back up the instruments. Some spacey sounding guitar sweeps are thrown in until a transition into a chug reinforced guitar pattern opens up. The chuggy guitar patterns and solid strikes on drums interchange with the ethereal conjuring patterns for this track. Voice clips are interlaid to back up a chug induced breakdown that eventually fades out in intensity to finish it up. “Malestrom”continues the album with trancey sounding synths that build up the track as a spoken line of vocals backs it up. The synths then start building up in intensity until the instruments start to pick up, and a nice beefy growl initiates the beating out of an extremely dark and chuggy guitar pattern with a meaty drum beat backing it up. Spaced out and deep yet grimy growls lead the spaced out yet blast-beat instrumental structure. Some clean power vocals are intertwined with grimy mid tone growls while trance themed synths are also intertwined backing up the instruments to absolutely build up the intensity. Synthetic bell chimes are thrown in after a short instrumental break with some more spoken lines of vocals. Guitar chugs pick back up for spaced out death growls until some synth backed chugs are highlighted to accentuate the closing.
*
A rising swell of synthesized strings fades in as the next song “Solem Vatem” begins. Trundling synths are then mixed in as a voice clip of a speech about humanity and our fate is interlaid. A slow drum beat starts to form with an evil sounding chug induced guitar pattern to finish off the track instrumentally. “Terminus”, the last song of the album Solem Vatem, opens up with a fast keyboard pattern that switches up into some quick guitar sweeps with corresponding drum fills. A rapid firing on drums pick up into the next verse as a slick guitar pattern picks back up. This changes to a melodic structure while the vocalist belts out his mid-tone raspy screams, up until a synth induced instrumental break picks up with another voice clip talking about the fate of humanity. There is a definite ethereal feel to this instrumental break as it expands the parameters of the track, until the drum beat builds back up into chugs and double-bass pedal backed deep vocal growls. Multiple short melodic instrumental breaks are used in between the chug induced patterns to build up variety on the song. Blast-beat drums and guitar chugs pick the tempo up one more time with a spaced out belting of vocals into a transition of synthesized power vocals. A slow and heavy breakdown forms with grimy deep growls and squeals backed by an exquisitely dark drum pattern, up until a synthetic swelling of strings slowly builds up the intensity, that then fades out to echoed footsteps slowly walking away
*
Krosis really surprised me with how on key their musical composition is, since they took a genre that is all too capable of being stale and generic, and breathed new life into it by adding their own twists to it with their awesome assortment of synths, audio clips, instrumental breaks, different musical structures, vocal variety, album continuity, and a maelstrom of different sub-genre components. This album Solem Vatem is going to remain relevant and fresh to me for a very long time into the future since it was composed so masterfully. If progressive deathcore/technical death metal is a new thing to you, then I would definitely suggest checking these guys out and of course buying their album!
*
*
Leave a Reply