The Body Cosmic

I've never had an album completely shatter my expectations like this. I thought this would be something like old Opeth and Ne Obliviscaris when I first played this album (because Dan Presland is on it). But what I got was not just that; it was way more than this, and it completely reshaped how I think about extreme metal and how it could recontextualize its delivery.

Iapetus is a progressive melodeath band from Long Island, New York (the same city Suffocation hails from). They were a little-known name when this album came out, with only Dan Presland of Ne Obliviscaris fame giving them some credibility with their music. But do not let this fool you; their music here is the definition of maximalist, progressive, and creative within the realm of death metal. Ranging from the unusual song structures, the endless blasting sections accompanied by a wall of sound, and the liberal use of clean vocals, samples, and negative space, Iapetus truly reinvented the wheel for progressive death metal and made us rethink what progressive death metal can really do.

While the album begins with typical death metal riffing and drumwork like many other albums, it is quickly made apparent that there is more to this album than meets the ear. The unusually comforting sounds of the instruments, along with the use of space-themed samples, make it clear that this will not be like other progressive death metal albums. It intends to bring you on a cosmic journey made of sound, befitting its name, The Body Cosmic. While it is extreme, it never feels aggressive, which is a feat rarely done by most progressive extreme metal bands since they often have leftover aggression or menace within their sound when they go for a more proggy sound. Instead, the sound is replaced by an oddly inquisitive sense of cosmic envelopment; it feels like you are on a journey throughout the album.

Another element of the album that is distinct from other progressive albums is that while they have quieter sections like prog albums, what makes TBC different is that the silence often takes away all the metal instruments, leaving only the keyboards and acoustic guitar. The heavy reliance of this element might sound like a detriment at first, but believe my words: it is indeed a brilliant decision, as it serves as a fitting breather for the grandiose wall of sound that immediately came before it. It makes the music so diverse and makes it stand out more amongst the sea of progressive death metal bands that try to copy Opeth's sound. So the fact that this band chose their own path makes them more commendable.

Regarding the songs, the album is a 70-minute journey, and it has only nine songs, which is an oddly low amount of songs for an album this long. But the songs are split between main songs that are often over 9 minutes and interludes that are between 2 and 5 minutes. The main songs and interludes often interconnect with each other like a Siamese twin song. This songwriting approach reminds me of Deafheaven's Sunbather, but Iapetus took it one step further as the first four songs are connected like a long 28-minute song. After that, the main songs and the interludes had a definitive enough intro and ending that they felt like separate songs. While this approach is fairly common for progressive bands due to the liberal spam of concept albums, this one felt fairly unique in that it never felt like it was bogged down by the need to be a concept album where all the songs are connected together, and instead all the songs just happened to be crafted in a way that accommodated the connection with other songs.

I think Dan Presland is what made most people give this album a chance, but do not let that fact make you ignore that the album is more than just the unrelenting drums. The drums are indeed some of the most extreme drumming I have heard; it is nothing but relentless and precise blast beats for the entire album, saving for the aforementioned interludes and quiet reprieves that I mentioned earlier, but despite that, the songwriting duo of Iapetus managed to arrange the drums in a way that makes the drumming sound oddly calming for the listener, to the point that the chaotic sections of the albums are the ones when the drums aren't doing blast beats non stop. For the guitars, the riffs, solos, and even the acoustic guitars sounded phenomenal; they really gave the album its identity as a maximalist feast of sound. While the samples and keyboards do not accomplish much in the main songs, they are the backbone for the interludes; they serve to calm down the listener and give them room to breathe after all the wall of sound that they experienced earlier. For the bass, while it is pretty subdued, you can still feel its presence. The fact that the bass can still be felt beneath the maximalist wall of sound is impressive, as this is something bands like Bal-Sagoth failed to do when they had a less grandiose sound than this album. The production is nothing short of brilliant, with it managing to balance all the instruments, vocals, and samples on a fine line without compromising any of those elements.

The album might be my AOTY for 2019 if it weren't for the fact that When A Shadow... was what I related to more, but I can say that this is the album that defines the evolution of extreme metal in the 2010s. It manages to be extreme metal without being too aggressive to the listener and sound acceptable to non-metalheads. Iapetus manages to create an album that does not just encapsulate the best of progressive extreme metal but also redefines it, showing the world what the genre is capable of.

Highlights: Everything