This French quartet from Metz, Grand Est have been around for 3 years and are releasing a rather intense début album full of interesting twists and musical changes to their technical prowess. Comprising of bassist Jefferson Brand, guitarist Florian Iochem, guitarist and vocalist Jules Kicka and drummer Paul Loup, they manage to keep me listening attentively for over an hour when listening to the album from start to finish.

The piano and buzzing organ of “Omniscient Bodies” makes a fitting intro to the album by giving it a sci-fi horror ambience which is quickly dispelled when “An Unworthy Covenant” rumbles in with unadulterated death metal fury, even though at over 10 minutes, it does meander through a couple of jazz orientated diversions to prevent it from becoming mundane.

“The Great Purpose Of The Lords” has it all, a great bass line that rumbles under the myriad of lead breaks as the drums go from syncopation to all out blasting, with the vocals cadence being the only constant throughout the song.

The exquisite “First Light” is an acoustic instrumental that could easily go on for ages, but instead it is abruptly cut short when “In Mist We Are Born” comes in at full pelt with the contrasting death growls and hardcore rasps over the quick riffs and choppy drumming.

I’m uncertain whether “Demophobia” is about the fear of listening to or making demos… Yes, I know it’s about fear of crowds, which would make entering a mosh pit rather difficult, anyway, it’s belted out with the required relish and even contains a pretty decent drum solo before it concludes.

The acoustic interlude during the middle of “Celestial Resurrection” is majestic, as is the speed it launches from that into the lead trade-offs before the growled vocals and blasting join the fray.

The slow gritty riffs and stop/start drumming, combined with the eerie nearly whispered vocals soon become roars over rapid drumming and tremoloed guitar riffs on “From The Last Sunset…” before all hell breaks loose on “…To Chaos” which is effectively blasted from beginning to end with plenty of intricate guitar harmonies played at ultra-high speed to leave you a little shell-shocked.

The long drawn out notes on the electric guitar are accompanied by clean picked notes, until the distortion raises the volume and the drumming becomes far more frantic on “The Empire That Failed”, but it’s the choral vocals that accompany the death growls that add as much of a lovely contrast as the jazzy bass does before the lead solo goes mental.

“The Council” is a short melodic instrumental intro to “For Whom Summons The Dead” which is mid-paced but rather heavy, even if the chorus does contain a rockier feel to the verses with clean vocals being used to convey far more anguish than the death vocals would ever manage, fading out with a rather prog vibe of all things.

A really good start to what should be a very interesting career.

 (7/10 Marco Gaminara)

https://www.facebook.com/CatalystFR

https://catalystfr.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-purpose-of-the-lords