Eterea

The mind works in mysterious ways… yep, even a most pessimistic batch like the Czech progressive/death metallers Pessimist could think of branching out into other realms; not very distant, though, as this other project of theirs still operated within the death metal confines on the debut, a really nice slab of Death-inspired pyrotechnics with a hefty sniff of the good old thrash.

A fairly promising beginning which doesn’t meet its match on the album reviewed here. The Death cloak has been radically removed, but with it most of the death references have gone, too. The big misleader here is called “Perceiving the Reality”, the opener which shreds like the guys’ intentions are to revisit the first coming on a near-note-by-note basis… yes but no; the moment this gust of intricate darkness is over, the delivery descends to dreamy spacey soundscapes quite reminiscent of Cynic’s comeback stint “Traced in Air”, and certainly Pessimist’s last two. Cleaner vocals are brought to the fore to better suit the mellow tepid music, and they surely do a good job on the balladic outtakes (“Causality (The Reconciliation)”, the impossibly, nauseatingly lyrical “Stillness of the Sea”) which are more than just a few. The brutal deathy rendings keep popping up, and they by all means give more character to the diverse dramatic progressiver “Enthusiastic Waves” to which a close companion piece could be considered the final Eterea, “Eterea Collapse”, a bouncy psychedelic ride which could have been a highlight on the mentioned “Traced in Air”.

No teeth, no nails, no bites on this recording which can easily float in the air, without a trace at that, as it has no weight whatsoever; it’s a light-hearted airy effort that perfectly fits its tale-telling title, the sparse deathy gravity that shows up at times not doing much to ground it. This is another addition to the diversification “beyond death” campaign (Disaffected, Morbus Chron, Tribulation, Serdce, Obliteration, etc.) that keeps growing with no regards how banal it may become at some stage, to try and beautify the good old death. Well, at least our friends here won’t contribute to it any more as they’re a foregone conclusion; the pessimistic masters have called their rebellious offspring back home, with no intentions of letting them loose for any such additional dreamy spacey excursions.