Time Signature
A deadly path...
Genre: melodic death-doom-gothic metal
Jordan might not be a country associated with heavy metal music, but make no mistake about it – the city of Amman does house a number of bands, including the highly professional band Bilocate, whose third album Summoning the Bygones is about to hit the streets.
Although genre-defining to some extent, the core sound of the tunes on this album may nonetheless be described as falling somewhere between melodic death metal and doom metal. Thus, the vocals are primarily growled (although some sections with clean vocals do appear on the album), and there are plenty of compelling guitar melodies and melodeath style riffage to complement the extreme metal vocal style. While the beats never really reach really slow doom-laden tempos, Bilocate nevertheless manage to capture pretty much the essence of death-doom metal, and several doom metal elements to occur throughout the album, and a track like 'Beyond Inner Sleep' (and the cover version of "Dead Emotions", of course) is definitely an all-out doom metal track.
This is not all, as a third central genre element that pervades the album is that of gothic metal – and we are not talking cheesy beauty-and-the-beast stuff here. The gothic influence seems more inspired by the likes of Paradise Lost and The Gathering (when they were still a metal band) and, thankfully, has more in common with the likes of Crematory and Ecnephias. Making use of synths, Bilocate generate a melancholic gothic atmosphere which quite often has an epic touch to it.
Summoning the Bygone also has a progressive edge to it – not just in the form of the overlaid piano sequences that appear on top of both distorted and clean guitars on the album, but also in form of generally dynamic song structures that, not unlike Opeth's music, combine dark and heavy metal sections with clean and mellow, but no less dark, passages. In addition, there are a number of interesting changes in tempo and mood, which ensures that the the music remains expressive at all times.
Bilocate's Summoning the Bygones is a massive effort in the progressive gothic melodic death metal department, and fans of Paradise Lost, early The Gathering, Ecnephias and Crematory should definitely check it out.
(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)