Label: Nuclear Blast
I’m really scared to research too deeply into Reptillian, because I’m scared that it will be either be a concept album, or some kind of silly mythology wankfest. As it is, I’m content knowing that it’s 8 songs with varying levels of awesome about how totally cool dragons are. Thats all I want…dragons with some pretty cool epic symphonic metal. Nothing more. No convoluted story. No silly mythology (why do metal bands hate religion but love mythology?). Just dragons. If I discovered any further meaning behind it it would be like discovering that the Unreal Tournement OST was actually written as an alternative backing to Synechdoche New York. It would be there, nagging away at the back of my mind whenever I tried to appriciate the vibes of pure violence, replaced with connotations of pretention and pseudo intellectual metaphores. So if there is some kind of “deeper meaning” to this album, don’t tell me. I just want the dragons.
Reptilian, is, as I said, a very adept symphonic metal album, that lies in a place somewhere inbetween black metal and melodic death metal. It combines croaky black metal style vocals with some rather generic yet still kind of tasty riffage /tremage, and then layers some synth on that, which makes it really work. This is definately quite unspectacular stuff, I mean yeah, symphonic metal is the oldest trick in the book, yet it’s executed well enough to make this CD worth your money. Moreso if you like dragons and awesome nerd stuff.
The songs are varied in length, like they always should be (the constant 7:00 on the latest Exodus got quite tiresome), and this helps in keeping each track as it’s own seperate entity. I admit, I didn’t on the few listens I’ve given it really get to know them all that well, but nevertheless, there is enough change in dynamic to keep the whole thing sounging fresh throughout. The parts that do linger are the more intraspective passages with a sense of gradual build up and tension, and so really work when they blast back in with an explosion of symphonic majesty. Its a tried and tested formula, but, like I said, executed to a very high standard. And its about dragons…
8/10
Eyelicker
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