Coldcell – Age Of Unreason
Coldcell – Age Of Unreason
AOP Records
26/07/2024
Running Time: 41:15
Review by Oli Gonzalez
6/10
Coldcell. An Atmospheric Black Metal band from the dark depths of Switzerland who have been infecting central Europe and further via their brand of Extreme Metal since 2012. This July, the band release their latest effort, “Age Of Unreason”.
Proceedings are underway with ‘Hope And Failure’. It appears that the band are going for a more Post-Metal twist alongside the more Extreme Metal side of the genre. Almost as if Batushka and Cult Of Luna had an unholy offspring. This is achieved with the atmospheric vibe and non-conventional song structures. We still have more traditional Black Metal elements, perhaps most prominent in some of those austere and ominous tremolo picked guitar riffs in the opening to ‘Dead To The World’.
Unfortunately, the songs are long and time is getting increasingly shorter for new fans to invest their listening time into, especially in a genre that is so fiercely stacked. Ideas are being recycled too much and are not really progressing. Sadly, It’s difficult to sit through an entire album where the songs effectively blend into one another with no real sense of advancement or compositional variety.
However, ‘Meaningless’ seems to offer some much needed variety with the introduction with the more ethereal and cleaner somewhat soothing female vocal line. Much in the same way other Extreme Metal acts such as Draconian or Cradle of Filth combine this with harsher, more extreme vocals in a beauty and the beast style duet. This brings beauty from the darkness and some much needed variation. Here is where I would have ended the album as sadly the remainder of the album seems to, again, recycle too many elements and appears to be copy and paste. This is likely to induce listener burn out. The production isn’t bringing the best out of the instruments either.
Overall, not the best introduction to Coldcell.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Hope and Failure
02. Dead To The World
03. Left
04. Solitary Or Solitude
05. Meaningless
06. Discord
07. Sink Our Souls
LINE-UP:
In – Bass, backing vocals
aW – Drums
Ath – Guitars
S – Vocals
Dml – Guitars
LINKS:
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