The Artisan Era is really starting to come into its own as a label, and is starting to hone in on a pretty specific sound. With bands like Inferi, Equipoise, Warforged, The Odious Construct, Arkaik, Aethereus, Oubliette, Flub, Enfold Darkness, Mordant Rapture and The Zenith Passage, the label certainly has some of the better technical death/black metal bands out there, and its clear the label likes all things symphonic as well. Enter Arizona’s Singularity who are a perfect fit on the label, and pretty much exemplify the label’s current sound.

With band members having ties to the likes of Virvum, Alterbeast and label mates Arkaik, the sound here is a full on tech black/death symphonic assault not unlike label mates The Odious Mordant Rapture and The Odious Construct, or the first killer record from Irreversible Mechanism.  And while there’s been some really good symphonic black/death metal/death core this year (Warforged, Ov Lustra, When Plagues Collide, Shadow of Intent, Mental Cruelty, The Convalescence), Singularity have a little bit of a different vibe, keyboardist Nick Pompliano ( who sadly passed in 2018) is clearly more inspired by the likes of Sverd (Arcturus, Covenant), Andy Winter (Winds)  and Jimmy Pitts (label mates Equipoise , Scholomance) and a more classic 90s Norwegian black metal symphonics. Not as blustery and full on bombastic or choir heavy as some of their label mates mentioned above or  the movie score inspired keys of say Francesco Ferrini ( Fleshgod Apocalypse) or David Folchitto (Stormlord), so its a much more piano based, classical, sweeping and airy, cosmic vibe, befitting much of the bands subject matter.

Under the keys, its a pretty solid, musically tight, clinical form of tech death (i.e “Sisyphean Cycle”) that their aforementioned  label mates  or some of Unique Leader’s band play, its well done, surgically precise, if a little soulless, but that’s where the killer keyboards come in and really give the music some stirring, classical oomph and elevate the whole affair into a much more memorable listening experience. Listening to the likes  “Consume and Assume”, personal favorite “Demosterion” and classical stomp of “Dead Receptors” where things slow down just a bit to let everything expand a little, or “Serpents, Eternal” its hard not to hear Arcturus on tech death steroids in the ivory tinkling under the swirling death/black metal vortex.

The overall material isn’t quite as progressive as label mates Warforged, as the underlying music is much more of a straight forward blistering tech death, but when enhanced by Pompliano’s keys, it becomes some thing much more magnificent, and certainly a legacy he and his band mates can be proud off.

 

[Visit the band's website]

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