ALLEGAEON – Formshifter

November 5th, 2012 by Yiannis

Metal Blade – Out Now.

Allegaeon is a fairly young modern Death Metal outfit that has already enjoyed a fair share of exposure in music-related media since its inception back in 2008. Signed by legendary Metal Blade records on the strength of a 4 track EP, the quartet began developing their style and in 2010 released their debut effort “Fragments Of Form And Function”, an album which helped strengthen the bond between label and band.

Two years on, and with their line up still intact, Allegaeon entered Lambesis Studios in order to start working on ideas which developed into the ten compositions that are featured on their second full length album “Formshifter”.

“Formshifter” is a ‘difficult-to-access’ album. Why? Because the same elements that can be praised are, at other times, also the album’s biggest downfall. Let me be more specific here. In Greg Burgess the band has a classically train guitarist whose grandiose ideas, both with regards lead solos and acoustic interludes. These are quite spectacular on a personal level but on a collective one often end up ‘suffocating’ the remaining instruments and creating the feel of both a lack of balance and orientation.

Furthermore, once you have heard half the album you realise that the band’s approach to song writing is so consistent that you start to feel like you are listening to the same song over and over again! On a more positive note, the album has been treated with a very crisp and dynamic sound, the riffs are meaty and bring together the two different but equally enjoyable musical universes of Death (Behemoth/Nile) and modern Thrash (Nevermore) Metal while every single chorus and refrain features a fairly catchy tune.

The album kicks off in a truly dynamic fashion with “Behold (God I Am)”, a song filled with groovy low chorded guitars, Behemoth style vocals and acoustic guitar passages of oriental feel. In “Tartessos: The Hidden Xenocryst” Greg Burgess unleashes his sheer talent on the six string, at times reminiscent of Dave Mustaine (Megadeth) but by the time “A Path Disclosed” is introduced the album’s equilibrium has been well and truly disturbed.

In the few instances where this guitarist’s individual urges are successfully harnessed, such as on the seven minute “Twelve – Vals For The Legions”, the end result is pretty outstanding but follow-up tracks such as “Iconic Images”, “Timeline Dissonance” and “Formshifter” find the band losing that precious momentum once again, leaving the acoustic themes of the closing piece “Secrets Of The Sequence” to offer some late consolation to the listener.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that these lads are capable of achieving great things together and it is only really a matter of time before they do, providing, of course, that they are both willing and patient enough. While “Formshifter” is quite an uplifting and entertaining collection of songs, to me it primarily comes across as a clear case of unfulfilled potential.

I really hope that these guys keep on evolving as musicians and work towards achieving better unity as a group and I am looking forward to listening to more music from them in the years to come, but for the time being…

John Stefanis

Rating: ***1/2 (3.5/5.0)

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