Sands of Time

What can you really say about a band that releases a Demo/EP to 20 copies and then splits up? Well let's look at the positive things:

Amenophiis are not an average death/black metal band, they have notable progressive elements. However the progressive side of this band has already been done by other death and black metal acts ie. Apophis, Nile or Melechesh that incorporate the ancient Egyptian folk or middle-eastern sounds or guitar work to their atmospheres. In this case Amenophiis have mostly used Egyptian styled riffs and guitar patterns as opposed to Egyptian folk or ethnic-ambient, however there are some songs with some moody Egyptian soundscape parts but really these parts only fill gaps in songs or serve as small ambient intro's.

Another good point, is the production for this Demo/EP, it is above average. Despite being a one guy project, this sounds as if it was recorded in a studio as opposed to a bedroom or basement.

There are however more negative things to say about this release: firstly the minor egyptian progressiveness displayed on this Demo/EP is not enough for the listener to want to replay this release, Amenophiis therfore are really just another clone of brutal blackened death metal (although of course they are virtually unknown). Simply unless there is outstanding talent or uniqueness to the sound a death/black metal band will not gain popularity, as is the case with Amenophiis they are just simply an average affair of death/black metal.

Another negative point is that with most typical black/death metal demo's, the songs end up being the same. Although Amenophiis use as mentioned some small intro's of Egyptian ambience, 99% of this release is just repetitive blackened death metal with a few Egyptian guitar riffs. For example the song Valley Of The Kings sounds nerally identical as to The Alter Of Seth, they are too similar songs. The song names to this project are also just so general, at least to Egyptian mythology at least with bands like Nile and Apophis they have explored more interesting and unknown parts of Egypt's history and religions (Egyptian occultism).

Overall, this DEMO/EP is nothing special, however it's not the worst of it's kind, there are far, far and far more black/death metal demo's out there that are crapper then this. I'm giving this 52% (just above average because of it's moderate production). If you want far better ancient Egyptian themed harsh death metal stick to Apophis or of course the more well known Nile.