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Three years after their debut, Enemy Of The Sun pushed out their
sophomore release, Caedium. Judging by the wild experimentation of their
debut, Shadows, I would’ve made a guess that the second album would
present a more streamlined and focused version of the debut – picking the
elements that worked the best and running with them. In many ways, it has happened
on this album, but quality-wise, the results remain mixed.
The band’s general soundscape has taken a slight turn toward a more industrial setting with computerized samples and the like which bring to mind Fear Factory or maybe even Strapping Young Lad. The mechanically slick production job and the herky-jerky tempo patterns set to the sonic theme of controlled chaos only make these comparisons even more plausible. But note that at the very least, the versatile vocal work of Jules Näveri keeps the band a good distance away from sounding anything like a rip-off of either of the aforementioned group. Depending on the song, the overall musical base here feels rooted more in technical thrash metal and modern grooving elements with dashes of hardcore here and there, as the death metal touches of the debut are much fewer in number. Proggy vibes abound throughout in the form of quirky solos and lead melodies and of course in the rhythms, highlighted by the extremely skilled drumming, which was already evident on Shadows. Actually, the quirkyness of the material occasionally brings to my mind the Finnish maestros, Stam1na (especially on Sky Shooting Stars). Amidst purely heavy headbangers like Another End Of The Rainbow, Try Out and Stolen Sky you’ve got the melodic flamenco moments on I Am One and Chasing The Dragon, some mandolin-flavoured SOAD-grooves on The Power Of Mankind and a frantic gypsy groove-beginning morphing into a very enjoyable thrash beatdown on Ticket (probably my favourite on this record). Overall the various experimental bits have been shortened in favour of a more metallic attack throughout. Even though I expected it and such streamlining was what I expected would benefit
the adventurous spirit evident on Shadows, I gotta say that right now
I prefer the debut. With the chaotic vibes less off-the-walls, this album is
more open for the harsh realization that some of the hooks and melodies just
aren’t that effective. Even when Shadows had many moments that
weren’t particularly memorable, it had so much different things going
on that one felt compelled to press play again to just try and discover something
more again. Caedium surely has it’s great moments, mostly with
the songs that do feature non-metallic spices in the mix, but when evidently
trying to just go balls to the wall with the metal, the punch just isn’t
as powerful as you’d hope. Maybe Enemy Of The Sun is
better suited with an unhinged, fun and chaotic mishmash of different influences
and instead of streamlining them as a whole for fist-throwing and moshing, just
trying to make each different musical element fit a single song along with its
theme and not restraining the multitude. Time will tell. |
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Killing Songs : I Am One, The Power Of Mankind, Ticket & Sky Shooting Stars |
Aleksie quoted 69 / 100 | |||||
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