UMUR
"A Great Work Of Ages" is the second full-length studio album by Australian death metal act Stargazer. The album was released through Profound Lore Records in August 2010. Stargazer formed as far back as 1995 and has released several splits and an EP before releasing their debut full-length studio album "The Scream That Tore the Sky" in January 2005.
The music on the album is at it´s core old school blackened death metal, but this is by no means a "regular" sounding old school death metal album. The music also features elements of black metal, traditional heavy metal, and it´s overall quite adventurous too, bordering progressive. It´s no surprise though if you´re familiar with some of the other acts that some of the members are or have been associated with like Mournful Congregation, Misery's Omen, and Portal. None of which play conventional sounding music either. The influence from the darkness and chaos of Portal and the busy bass playing and semi-progressive structures of Misery's Omen are audible. Those are just elements of Stargazer´s music though and they do have quite a unique sound of their own.
The lyrics and the image of the band revolve around mysticism and other dark and sinister subjects and provide the sound with the right mood to suit the mystic and dark atmosphere of the music, which song titles like "The Morbid Slither, The Sinner Slough", "Refractive Convex Continuum" and "Formless Face of the Timeless Faceless" also bear witness to. Other then "Chase For The Serpentsong" which is 9:15 minutes long, the tracks stay within the 4 to 6 minutes time range, but quite a lot happens during that time (vers/chorus structures are more or less abandoned). Everything happens for a reason though and help build the sinister atmosphere. The pace changes often and there are everything from blast beats to doomy sections featured on the album (and some very busy and dominant bass/fretless bass playing). The vocals range from aggressive sneering, to brutal intelligible growls to unintelligible inhuman growling.
In addition to the distorted parts Stargazer also incorporates atmospheric clean guitar parts in the music. It´s not a dominant feature on the album, but it´s quite nice for the variation when those sections occur. So the songwriting is certainly top notch and the musicianship equally so and fortunately the same can be said about the dynamic and organic sounding production which grace "A Great Work Of Ages". A high quality release through and through, deserving a 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating. This is an album which should greatly appeal to fans of the above mentioned acts, but maybe fans of acts like Opeth and Enslaved might find something to like here to.