CAST THE STONE — Empyrean Atrophy (review)

CAST THE STONE — Empyrean Atrophy album cover EP · 2018 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Kev Rowland
Cast The Stone is Mark Kloeppel (Misery Index, Scour with Phil Anselmo), Derek Engemann (ex-Cattle Decapitation, Scour), Jesse Schobel (Legend, ex-Scour) and vocalist Andrew Huskey. First formations of the band began in 2002, long before its protagonists departed for their better known metal-scene mainstays, and as a trio they released their debut album as long ago as 2005 (when Kloeppel also acted as lead singer). So although they may seem to be something of a supergroup in some ways, this is an example of a band getting back together some years after the members have had success elsewhere. This is a six-song 27-minute-long EP

In many ways, this is an album which has far more in common with the Swedish death metal than Florida, which is somewhat surprising given that they hail from Missouri. An obvious influence is Opeth, especially on the delicate acoustic “Standing In The Shadows”, which site nicely towards the middle of the album to provide a break and contrast to what is happening in the other five songs. Guitarist Mark Kloeppel commented, "The band's sound is a testament to an enduring spirit that’s driven us to return to our most organic influences, merge them together, incorporate disparate elements, and forge our own sound. Each person has a distinct sound unto themselves, so it's really cool how smooth and cohesive this stuff comes across. You can immediately hear how different this is from the other things we've been involved in, yet it's still very true to our individual styles. Our bassist Derek progressively weaves my guitars and Jesse's uber-creative drumming style together in a way that only he can. This is all crowned off by Andy Huskey's crazy death metal vocals which are... well, just listen".

Dan Swanö (Katatonia, Merciless, Edge Of Sanity) has undertaken his normal flawless job on production, and the result is an EP which fans of the genre would do well to investigate. It has taken them 13 years to come up with this, let’s hope it isn’t so long until a full album.
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