UMUR
"A Place, Where Is No Time" is the debut full-length studio album by Russian progressive metal act Agnost Dei. The album originally had a Russian title ("Место, где времени нет") and Russian song titles and that´s the version I´m in possession of. "A Place, Where Is No Time" is a concept album. The lyrical concept is based on the Andrey Tarkovskiy´s movie "Stalker".
The music on the album is quite dark and combines some really heavy chugging metal riffing with spacy synth sounds and more melodic progressive metal elements too. The vocals vary greatly on the album from melodic singing to aggressive styled vocals. The band masters all styles very well both when when it comes to the vocals but certainly also when we´re talking about the music itself. This is a very well playing and innovative band. There are lots of samples in the music taken from the "Stalker" movie and even though I haven´t seen the movie and don´t know what they are saying in the samples (Surprise: I don´t understand the Russian language) they create dark images in my mind. A testimony to the fact that the samples succeed in doing what they were meant to: Create dark and eerie atmosphere. In addition to drums, guitar, bass, vocals and synths which are played by the members of the band there are also a few guest musicians who play on the album. There are cello on a couple of tracks as well as violin on a couple of tracks. The addition of strings work well but it´s the saxophone in the track "By An Inconceivable Slumber..." that really takes the prize.
The lyrics are in the Russian language and that might scare off a few people but personally I find the use of the Russian language charming. The band has since the recording of "A Place, Where Is No Time" found a new lead singer and will use English language lyrics on future releases.
The sound production is professional and powerful. I think the bass sounds a bit unconventional at times with a clicky and metallic tone. It´s not a big deal though. The sound is overall excellent.
A release like "A Place, Where Is No Time" is exactly why I keep having faith in the progressive metal genre despite too many generic releases in genre. It might be that I have to drag myself through one Dream Theater clone after another before I get to an album like this but albums like "A Place, Where Is No Time" makes it every bit worth the struggle. Agnost Dei is progressive, innovative and experimental. What more could I wish for? And when the quality of the music, in addition to those above mentioned positive things, is so high, I´m sold. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved. I can highly recommend this album to fans of dark, adventurous and rather unconventional sounding progressive metal.