Time Signature
To endotation...
Genre: hermetic dark metal
Labeled by the band as hermetic dark metal, the music of Ysengrin, at least on this album, is considerably eclectic, containing elements of death metal, doom metal, gothic metal, black metal, thrash metal and even some more traditional heavy metal.
And this is a blend that works incredibly well, as the forty-minute sole song found on the album takes the listener through various metal music landscapes, from melodic upbeat riffs over slow and heavy doom-laden passages to black metal-styled blastbeating. To this you can add chucking Celtic Frost-ish riffage and other primitive black-thrash moves, and there is even a slightly funky acoustic section towards the end.
A song of forty minutes can easily get boring, but that does not happen here, as Ysengrin manage to stuff a lot of variation into the composition with cleverly placed changes of tempo, style and atmosphere and breakdowns and build-ups. Musically, I would say that this is a very well put together epic track, which never gets boring. I am not a big fan of the husky whisper-like growled vocals, and I think that a more varied vocal style would have done the album more favors, but I can see how Guido Saint Roch's growls on this album contribute to the overall dark atmosphere.
Not all metal bands can pull off doing a 40-minute song, but Ysengrin do it successfully on "To Endotation", and anyone who is up for a dark journey through the world of metal should jump on for the ride. It is indeed a very well put together track.