APHOTIC - Stillness Grows

APHOTIC
Stillness Grows
Flood The Earth Productions - 2004
5/10




For the label's first release ever, Flood The Earth records have assembled three EP recordings from Green Bay’s Aphotic on a single disc. Aphotic perform a style of atmospheric death metal laced with keyboards, MIDI programming and dark growling that is guitar driven and for the most part well executed. The first five tracks are culled from the band’s most recent EP, ‘Stillness Grows’.

I enjoy the songs here but the production is slightly weak, sounding very tinny at times and lacking the balls of a big budget project. That said, the band weave their way through tracks like ‘Lunar Ride’ and ‘Benumb’ skillfully. The eerie outro to ‘Lunar Ride’ does a nice job of creating a chilling ambience. Tracks six through nine hails from the group’s ‘Under Veil Of Dark’ release.

On these recordings, the vocals are a bit louder than on the newer material. ‘Free Me’ is a solid track that deviates a bit from the norm with tranced-out vocals and sweeping acoustic elements until the song kicks in to some interesting mid tempo double bass reminiscent of Tiamat.

The final five tracks are taken from the groups first EP, ‘Aphotic’. The production on these tracks is probably the worst of the batch. Although there are some great song ideas here, this material should have been rerecorded or left off the disc. It screams ‘I am a demo!”, ‘nuff said. Aphotic have written some pretty decent atmospheric death throughout their career. If they had the opportunity to take their time a bit in the studio, the end result would surely be much better.

I would like to hear what happens if Aphotic ever laid their hands on some decent studio time with a good producer.


ERIN FOX © 2004 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED