Ave! Italy’s Romanic death metal warriors ADE are back with yet another new line up, another label and another quality album..despite that Dance of Death level artwork…
Lone original member/founder/primary song writer Fabivs again has a whole new legion surrounding him including bassist Cornelvuis and vocalist/lyricist Diocletianvs (both formerly of Suicidal Causticity/ Oredreth), the band’s third vocalist in as many albums. Also producer Stephan Morabito (Fleshgod Apocalypse, Hour of Penance) was brought in, and they all bring a more brutal death metal tone to the proceedings, and that tone is echoed throughout the entire album has much more traditional Italian death metal vibe, if still heavily layered with the band’s traditional Roman/ Hellenic instrumentation and orchestration.
As a result, the band’s sound that has always been compared to Nile, except Roman, is even more Nile sounding, but that’s a good thing, as the band’s mix of technical pummeling death metal and slower, warmongering, militant marches is perfectly executed. And on this album, Egypt and Rome actually collide as the album takes the age of Caesar including interactions with Cleopatra.
After the intro “Forge the Myth” the album gets right to in with ten tracks of solid, near excellent death metal that mixes tight, near brutal death metal with Roman symphonic, choirs and orchestration. The balance is perfect as tracks like regal opener “Empire”, blistering “The Gallic Hour Glass” and “Suppress The Riot” or more controlled numbers like “The Chains of Alesia” or majestic, parade perfect pomp of “Gold Roots of War” stride with , bombastic authoritative, commanding presence, befitting the band’s themes.
The closing trio of “Veni Vidi Vici”, moody “The Blythe Ignorance” (detailing the Ides of March), and “Imperator” round out the album with 3 strong tracks, resulting in an album that’s better than 2016s Carthago Delenda Est, but not quite as strong as the debut Spartacus and cementing ADE as one of death metal’s new vanguard of excellence.
“Ignavi coram morte quidem animam trahunt, audaces autem illam non saltem advertunt”
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This is excellent. The orchestration and death metal are perfectly integrated, and the songs are both cohesive and compelling. This far outperforms the new Nile for me – I thought that album was a mess.
on Dec 19th, 2019 at 21:19