Ελληνικά
Genre: Progressive Rock
Country: Greece
Label: –
Year: 2017
Absinthiana was founded in 2011 an has since released an EP in 2013 and just earlier this year their debut full-length album, called “Structural”. My first touch with the band was their lyric video for the song “Enlighten” which you can watch here and which drew my attention. So let’s dive into the album!
The album starts off with the song “Mood Swings”, with complex aggressive melodies that bring earlier Opeth to mind, accompanied by fierce growls, giving then place to more atmospheric passages using clean vocals and guitars. The title of the song was very appropriate, since the mood of the song shifts from anger and aggression to a bittersweet melancholia towards the end of the song, giving a fitting leap to Enlighten, which is up next. Enlighten is a darker tune throughout, emphasizing clean vocals over growls. Its chorus is catchy and is one of my personal favorite moments in the entire album. Up next we move to the song “Tired” which is heavily based on complex rhythm, unusual measures and structure, sacrificing the intense atmosphere though. A similar pattern can be spotted in Trashbag as well, however this one pulls it off in a better way and manages to create a morbid atmosphere that perfectly fits the dark lyrics of the song. The title track of the album is the only wholly instrumental song in Structural, but despite its rather stretchy length, manages to fill the spot very well. Moving towards the end of the album, Mercy is a song that uses a circular structure, starting up soft and slowly building tension up to a point, exploding to a heavier part, only to collapse to its very starting melody. Last but definitely not least, To an End is the dramatic and heavy hearted outro that perfectly fits this album. Although I’d usually not recommend the use of a fade out melody as the outro of the entire album since I prefer definitive endings, in this particular case it was done well on purpose and fits the lyrics perfectly.
All in all, structural left me some very good impressions. Complex music and heavy atmosphere hand in hand throughout the length of the album, which however did not let a few exceptional parts to stand out and stay in your head. The subject of the album revolves around pessimism and depreciation, giving a very dark view on life, which is pulled off very well. The negatives of this album are the clean vocals that to my ears need some more work and the structures that could use a simpler path to be able to hold your attention throughout.
Structural is a great debut from this band and suggests that great things are to come from this band in the future. Looking forward to their next work!
4.5/6
