The Italian Symphonic Death masters are back with their third full length and the follow up to breakthrough release “Agony.” New album “Labyrinth” continues to utilize the immense orchestrations and dense mix found on “Agony” with an improved mixing and mastering this time around. The guitars are more present on “Labyrinth,” which is a major improvement.
But honestly, overall, I’m a little ways in and I’m not sure what I think. Aesthetically this beats “Agony” but otherwise I’m not sure. Sure the mix and tones are great but what really counts is the songwriting. The band is still pummelling as a pack of angry, demonic mastodon but I have a couple preliminary criticisms. There hasn’t been any epic orchestration intros like the album intro or the intro to “The Violation” off of “Agony,” the bassist's clean vocals have been mostly removed in favor of a true female opera singer and I definitely miss his unique style, and it seems to me like there is less soloing so far. Well I’ll spin it a bit and we’ll see what I think. You should go figure out for yourself though.
-Trisolino
Links: Facebook // Pre-order // Album Stream
