Review Summary: Foreboding, unsettling and surprisingly ethereal, this album shows the maturity of The Arcane Order's unique sound.
Most reviews on Sputnik are written in the vein of "while these guys don't bring anything new to the table, they're good at what they do" - it has almost become a canned phrase at this point, at least to me. Everyone seems to be in desperate search for something innovative or unique in a sea of imitators and derivation. Ironically enough,
The Arcane Order are just that - yet for some reason these Danes have gone largely unnoticed compared to most of their Swedish and Norwegian colleagues, even though they've been around since at least 2007 or earlier - that was the year they released their debut album
The Machinery of Oblivion. It is also possible that the band gets overlooked because those who stumble upon it and see it described as a melodeath/thrash combo think they already know what they need about their sound (maybe expecting something like
Arch Enemy or
Carnal Forge?). Big mistake.
The Arcane Order are as unique as they get for a band that was formed in the mid 00s, when most modern genres had already pretty much taken shape. Frankly, even the recommendations that come with this review are really remote. But there is something reminescent of each of these bands in
The Arcane Order's sound. For example, with
Fallujah they share their ethereal atmosphere and wall-of-soundy aspects, with
SYL and
Daath their industrial vibes with a healthy dose of spirituality and sci-fi. What makes them resemble
Shade Empire, on the other hand, is the constantly high emotional charge of their music, occasional blackened death metal tastes, in addition to the aspects the other mentioned bands also share. But even despite these similarities,
The Arcane Order's atmosphere is still unique and impossible to fully liken to any other band - the easiest way to describe it would be "unsettling". It's perhaps due to the sense of melody of the composers, but this band's music even at its most mellow moments never felt relaxing or consoling. It always came with the vibes of faint hope or peaceful if reluctant acceptance of a bad outcome at best. Perhaps this is another factor that has made the band less stomachable to the average listener - the melodies are detached, otherworldly almost. Like "orange-blue morality", something few can comprehend.
Distortions from Cosmogony, is the band's fourth full-length, and the first in seven years. This time, however, everything that occasionally felt lacking or tiresome with their previous records seems gone. The production is better than ever, and while on previous releases the vocals were in a rather tiresome fashion almost exclusively mid to high pitched screams, this time we've got the whole range from very deep death metal growls to black metal shrieks - courtesy of new vocalist Kim Song Sternkopf who joined the band back in 2021. And this guy really knows what he's doing. That alone makes the album a much easier listen the band's previous material, since vocals being monotonous can really kill the mood.
But vocals aside, the core of the sound on this release is a slow-burning, almost droning approach to songwriting, something that began to be emphasized on the band's previous record,
Cult of None. The songs were laways written with a bit of a slow start before they fully unleashed - this time around this seeming sameness and droning monotonouysness doesn't feel like a disadvantage. The heavily pounding blast beats don't feel in any way softened or diminished because fo the spacious production - yet they're made palatable and in consequence the music is enjoyable no matter how slowly it unfolds. While
The Arcane Order were never ones to meander between buildups and climaxes and instead always opted for a constantly highly-charged assault - this was yet another reason that in the past made listening to them tiresome. It's a pitfall many great bands are held back by, especially in the melodeath/thrash thereabouts. Even extreme metal works better with moments of respite, but the addition of atmospheric elements makes the constantly elevated assault dissolve into more of an ambienty/droney experience, which makes the usually high intensity of the music much more forgiving. And yet, respite can still be found, such as the dreamlike interlude
Empedocles Dream, to name one. But even disregarding that - this is probably the second album where the cold, lonely and encompassing sound of
The Arcane Order goes easy on the listner's batteries, even at its heaviest. The unconventional sense of melody the composers bring is just as present as ever, with foreboding and disturbing melodic sequences that rarely resolve in the traditional way - as mentioned before, the listener is constantly put into a state of alertness and unease. An acquired taste.
Now with their fourth release, the band's sound has quite possibly matured more than ever, with an excellent vocal performance and production, a good balance of melody, heaviness and industrial cold, and enough variety and dynamics not to overstay its welcome. While this band's sound has always been a bit unorthodox, they're nothing if not unique. And isn't that what everyone wants in the first place?
