AUGURY — Fragmentary Evidence (review)

AUGURY — Fragmentary Evidence album cover

Album · 2009 · Technical Death Metal

5/5 · 2012-05-27
adg211288

Fragmentary Evidence is the second full-length album from the Canadian death metal act Augury. Being released in 2009 the band left it a good while between studio albums since their debut Concealed was released in 2004. By the time of release the line-up had changed to include new drummer Antoine Baril but Concealed drummer Étienne Gallo actually played the drums so the core Augury line-up remains unchanged. They aren’t working with female vocalist Arianne Fleury any more however and did not replace her.

Compared to their debut Fragmentary Evidence is a much more standard affair of progressive/technical death metal. The removal of female vocals (apart from a guest slot from Unexpect’s Leïlindel) takes away one of the biggest atypical elements that Concealed had going for it, and there is nothing that screams avant-garde at me the way Beatus from Concealed did. Although the music is still very much death metal, it somehow feels a lot more tamed compared to the wild adventurous style of Concealed. It some ways that’s a disappointment but in others it’s a good thing as although this is still recognisable as Augury the band most certainly haven’t made the same record twice over and it certainly does not lack for merits of its own.

It’s not without its own surprises though, the biggest of these being the track Sovereigns Unknown which features the most use of frontman Patrick Loisel’s clean vocals that I’ve heard in an Augury track. Although he still uses his deep death metal growling in it it’s hard to really consider it a death metal track even with the music being in the same style as the rest of the album. Loisel’s clean voice puts me in mind of working in heavy or US power metal context’s the most but this track isn’t really either. To be honest although it lacks the instrumentation to make the claim valid, vocally it sounds very folk metal to me, of the Alestorm variety that is.

Still, despite the album not being overall as surprising or unique as Concealed was Fragmentary Evidence is easily a worthy follow-up to the masterful debut. There is just one blip with the opening track Aetheral which I think is Augury’s weakest track. It took me a lot of listens to get into this one compared to the rest of the album, which got my attention after just one listen and it’s still the only track from Fragmentary Evidence that I don’t love.

The rest of the album is masterful however. It may be more typical than atypical this time but Augury proves once again that they deserve to be counted among the best acts of the progressive death metal genre. Tracks such as Simian Cattle, Orphans of Living and most especially Jupiter to Ignite and Oversee the Rebirth are just as good as anything they delivered on Concealed. The level of technicality is amazing but they never sacrifice song writing or their status as a death metal act.

The album features a number of guest vocalists on several songs but I’d sooner put them done as cameo vocalists that all the contributions are so minimal that you’d miss them if you got distracted for even a moment. The most notable of them is probably Leïlindel on Brimstone Landscapes, whom being female has a naturally different tone to the horde of growlers appearing on Fragmentary Evidence. But she’s gone as quickly as she came as well. It all feels a little pointless really. None of them really detract from the album except in Aetheral so mostly them being here is neither here nor there. I do think Leïlindel in particular could have been used more though, as I do miss that extra level of uniqueness that Arianne Fleury’s vocals gave Concealed.

One thing I do have to say in Fragmentary Evidence’s favour over Concealed though is that Augury’s development as musicians is very evident. The guitar work of Patrick Loisel and Mathieu Marcotte is stunning and Dominic "Forest" Lapointe’s bass brings even more to the Augury sound than it did on Concealed. I like the fact that he uses some fretless bass on the album, as that always works really well in a progressive death metal sound.

If it were not for Aetheral dragging my overall experience of Fragmentary Evidence down some it may have actually dislodged Concealed from its status as the best death metal release I’ve ever heard, despite the fact I consider that album a true masterpiece worthy of a perfect score. As it is though I find myself more inclined not towards a masterpiece tier rating but rather an exceptional one instead. Still, when you’re only two albums into your career and are delivering albums as this high quality, I don’t think Augury fans are going to have much to sniff at with Fragmentary Evidence. Without Aetheral it easily would have been top tier though, possibly even a second perfect in a row.

9.3/10

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