Ke hvězdám

As you already know from my "Ignorace" review (if not - go check it out!), the Czechs had their own, interesting Cynic counterpart called Pessimist, whose existence, unfortunately, very few people were aware of - and this situation probably doesn't look any different to this day. Either way, their debut album made it clear that the trio did not want to blatantly copy the Americans, they constantly diversified this style with their accents and did not limit themselves to smuggling influences from one group. The situation was even better with their second longplay, "Ke Hvězdám", on which the group improved production, got rid of some softeners and more subtly took "Focus" patterns into their own. So much so that it cannot be called them as an ordinary or budget Cynic wannabe.

The 5 years between "Ignorace" and "Ke Hvězdám" were not wasted - the group has improved significantly. This was not necessarily influenced by the change in the drums case, because the new member, Martin Voděra, maintained the level of finesse and technique very similar to his predecessor, but it all comes down to the ideas for compositions themselves. I had no doubts that they would be on "Ke Hvězdám", but the point is that they are even better than on the debut and clearly closer to the genius of Cynic, Death and Atheist. Although this is not heard at the beginning, or more specifically by the title track, as it features keyboards reminiscent of kindergarten, goofy melodies and a rather bleak atmosphere, don't be discouraged - as a consolation, the track has some nice, melancholic guitar parts that may bring to mind Chuck Schuldiner's style. Later in the album, the above-mentioned qualitative leap and technical improvement appear. And I say mainly because along the way there is also "V Nekonečnu", which is an unnecessary interlude-song artificially filling the time with trashy bells and a cosmic atmosphere, despite an interesting bass solo in it.

It's time for the crème de la crème "Ke Hvězdám", i.e. delicious prog-death-fusion. Well, there's a lot of to admire here - as long as you accept Cynic and progressive music. Technical riffs, melodies close to late Death, irregular rhythms, not stupid (i.e. without embarrassment) clean singing interspersed with deathy vocals, cosmic-sounding keyboards, original song structures, fretless bass in the foreground and sophisticated drums - this is only a superficial description of what's happening on "Ke Hvězdám". The music here is just like its cover - non-obvious and immersed in space. And the best thing is that the Czechs drew conclusions from the first album and on the second one they clearly narrowed the duration of individual songs, which is why most of them oscillate around four-five minutes. This gives us the effect of extensive and multi-layered material, and at the same time, due to well-thought-out motifs and narrowing, easily digestible and - in its own way - quite catchy. Take a look at "Ztráta Naděje", "Čas", "Hledání" or "Iluze", and you will know what exactly I am talking about.

I don't have many objections about "Ke Hvězdám" - only minor things come to mind. I mentioned two weaker songs, so I'm not going to repeat myself. Somewhere between pros and cons is the instrumental "Cynik", which is definitely too close to "Textures" - and it's not justified by the obvious title. In some moments, a little more metal could be used, but that's a meanness from my side, as the band has generally improved the aspect of the guitars and, indeed, there is more flesh in them compared to the debut.

Therefore, if you like Cynic, Sadist, Death and similar sounds, "Ke Hvězdám" will fulfill its task perfectly. On their second album, the Czechs have improved significantly in terms of production and composition and have created material that can easily compete with bands that are more famous in technical and progressive varieties of this music. In fact, the Czech Cynic sounded better here than Cynic itself after reactivation.

Originally on A bit of subjectivism...in metal