I can’t stop listening to the barrage of amazing Technical Death Metal coming from The Artisan Era.  Recently I reviewed Montreal’s Sutrah which blew my out of the water. Now I am taking a gander at a group from Green Bay Wisconsin called Aronious.  This is a time consuming album to process at being close to an hour.  Any time you have two tracks that are split into 13 parts like on Perspicacity you are more than likely going to need to put some time aside to process this.

The way the album starts would make Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert of Cynic proud with the clean toned progressive guitar phrasing going on mixed with some Steve Digeorgio-esque bass lines and some accompanying synth parts.   The other eyebrow raising component of this release is that it was mixed and mastered at Audiohammer studios by The Great Mark Lewis.  Overall this is an extremely ambitious album for a debut.  The fretboard work by Ryan Brumlic and Nick Weyers is outstanding and all over the place.

Tracks like “Somatic Evolvement” remind me a little of progressive tech thrashers Watchtower as there is almost a subtle Jarzombek vibe going on.  I am almost reminded a bit by Willowtip records recording artist Capharnaum and their 2004 release Fractured.   The fretboard attack of Weyers and Brumlic reminds me a bit of Suecof and Mongrain with how frantically precise the riffs are.  The length of the album is probably my biggest gripe with it.  They could have scaled down the album to under 40 minutes and had additional material to use for a future release.  This is minor nitpicking as for a debut album the material is incredibly well written and produced.

The Artisan Era keeps cranking out amazing releases in 2020 and the year is not slowing down at all.  For anyone into Spawn of Possession, Archspire or Beyond Creation this might very well be up your alley and worth checking out.  I cannot wait to hear what these guys come out with for a follow up to this. Very impressive.

[Visit the band's website]

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