With 2014s excellent The Flesh Prevails, Fallujah really came into their own amid a saturated deathcore/djent core scene, forgoing the tech death forays of the debut, The Harvest Wombs in favor of a more dreamy, elegant and progressive pastures.  Well, the critical success of The Flesh Prevails was parlayed into a deal with Nuclear Blast, so the pressure was really on to produce a worth while follow up. And the California quintet answered the call admirably.

Once again, the artwork by Tomasz Alen Kopera gives you a glimpse into the band’s sound, I like to call it ‘dreamcore’, ‘cos I label everything. It’s a modern metal mix with equal parts tech death, deathcore, djent and a whole lot of experimental and atmospheric stuff, dare I say more than The Flesh Prevails. But boy is everything gorgeous. Even the heavy, down-tuned metal lumbers and such as heard on “Abandon” are utterly layered and sumptuously, almost touchable.

The naysayers will say their is too much building, ooohhhh/ahhhhhh ambiance, and not enough metal, like the 6 plus minute title track and equally as long “Wind for Wings”, instrumental “Fidelio”, and Les Silences” , but the metal is so finely crafted and deep, such as stunning transition between opener “The Faces of Death” and “Adrenaline” (about 30 seconds in, it is utterly transcendental), or “Scar Queen”, that it’s deceptively heavy due to the so many layers and dreamy haze that floats around every moment. Granted, almost every song has some sort of wahhhh/solo going on while the song does its other stuff,  and there is certainly some interchangeable stuff with the last album, but it comes together so profoundly, that it simply takes you away.

Also, amid the deep bellows of Alex Hoffman,  the ethereal female vocal presence (from the angelic Tori Letzler‎) seems to be upped a tad as heard on a few more tracks like the title track, trippy “Fidelio” “The Void Alone” , the aforementioned “Abandon”, and “Lacuna”. But these guys can bring the blast and rumble, no matter how layered and beautiful it is, as displayed on”The Prodigal Son” and “Amber Gaze”. But the likes of penultimate trip hop track “Les Silences” is sure to ruffle a few feathers.

But luckily “Lacuna” finishes things up with a typical Fallujah number, mixing a little of both and cementing the band  as one of the more creative, genre pushing young bands around. They are displaying the ability to develop and mature beyond their original sound in a way that defies usual core based paradigm and delivers a truly mesmerizing yet still heavy sound, that looks to be the future of modern metal.

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