AUGURY — Concealed (review)

Album · 2004 · Technical Death Metal

5/5 · 2012-05-27
adg211288

Concealed is the debut album from Canadian progressive death metal act Augury which was released in 2004. The sound of the band is extreme, yet melodic and there are many atypical elements in the sound even for progressive death metal, such as the regular inclusion of female vocals, which are sometimes in an operatic style. Parts of the music could also be considered as avant-garde death metal, especially the opening track Beatus, the weirdest sounding piece on the album.

The weirdness of Beatus aside Concealed delivers much high quality material in the prog/tech death metal style which can easily also be considered as much brutal death metal, for the sound never lacks for intensity unless they purposely throws in a light section, which they are wont to do. The guitars are crushing and most of the growls deep and powerful. Augury does not make music for the casual listener. It’s very easy for the proggy death metal acts to be thrown into the same boat as ‘vanilla’ prog metal acts such as Dream Theater by many listeners (and sometimes this is justified, as with Opeth), but Augury leaves no room for doubt that their loyalties lie with death metal.

The best thing about that though is that Augury has no lack of progressive credentials either. They veer off the death metal path a lot in this album through use of those female vocals I mentioned and also with some clean male vocals as well. I’m just as impressed with Patrick Loisel’s cleans as much as I am with his growls. I expect if most death metal acts tried an album such as this the clean male vocals would be highly melodic, as in melodic death metal. Loisel’s singing voice has an edge to it that puts him in a different league to the clean vocalists of the melodeath style. His clean vocals wouldn’t be out of place in a number of non-extreme metal style including traditional metal, US power metal, and perhaps even some forms of folk metal but they’re definitely different for what clean vocals death metal normally has.

The prog comes in more forms than just vocal variation though. For example the album features a track called The Lair of Purity, the best track in my opinion, which features a lot of clean melodic guitar work as well as all three vocal styles. The opening melody is excellent and as far removed from death metal as you can get but before long the track builds up into Augury’s signature death metal sound with an added level of epic flavour that is quite unlike anything else I’ve heard. Every track offers something special however, but I have to single out Cosmic Migration and Alien Shores in this review as well, as personal favourites as least (along with Beatus).

The musicianship is excellent across the board but I have to give special mention to bassist Dominic "Forest" Lapointe who uses his instrument to add a whole extra dimension of Augury’s music. He’s easily one of the few bassists whose playing really demands that you take note of him.

Concealed is much more than a top quality debut album from Augury. It’s an album which they’ll never top (but hopefully one day equal) because it really doesn’t have a single flaw. It is an essential purchase for any death metal fan and a perfect rating is given whole-heartedly from me.

10.0/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))