Septicflesh
Communion
Season of Mist
Get your mind in the gutter
Jogged from a five-year slumber, Septicflesh, formerly Septic Flesh, return to prove there’s more to the waning Greek metal scene than Rotting Christ, Firewind and George Kollias. Veterans Varathron and Kawir are still kickin’ it obscure, but in a long line that included Nightfall, Elysian Fields, On Thorns I Lay, etc., Septic Flesh are the only band left standing. Communion, an amalgamation of send-off album Sumerian Daemons and debut LP Mystic Places of Dawn, is the Flesh’s most complete work since Ophidian Wheel, insofar as its atmospheric death, gothic rock and orchestral ambitions align more cohesively and consistently. Like mid-period Therion without the fruitcake.
“Narcissus,” “Sunlight Moonlight,” “Persepolis” and “Annubis” are probably the album’s strongest tracks, where Sotiris Vayenas and Chris Antoniou’s melancholic stone-smooth riffs glide effortlessly from one movement to the next. It’s Antoniou’s “Bebel’s Gate”—with its Hellraiser-like string/blast beat abstraction—and “Lovecraft’s Death” where Septicflesh’s full potential is revealed, however. Though these two are Communion’s weakest tracks—due largely to the jarring, full-on death metal clumsily affixed to the orchestration—they represent moving beyond re-tooling “Chasing the Chimera” or the baklava-rich “The Eldest Cosmonaut.” The 112-piece orchestra/choir must be heard to be believed.
Produced and mastered by Fredrik Nordström (Dimmu Borgir) Communion—from savage growls and Pasi Koskinen-like wails to the blaring horns in “We the Gods”—sounds huge. Despite nü-metalisms (condensed name à la Limp Bizkit), the Deftones riff-lift on “Annubis” and a somewhat clunky death metal angle (a pesky problem that started on Esoptron), Communion finds Septicflesh in chillingly good form. —Chris Dick
