Thurisaz's "The Cimmerian Years" Reviewed

Welcome to a different world of Belgium based Atmospheric Blacken Death / Doom metal band Thurisaz, whose history started in 2004 with the release of their first full length album “ The Scent of a dream”. I was introduced to this album after two years of the release. Then the band became my next most favourite band after Opeth. 1st album had a brilliant mix of melodic and black / death metal. All the songs in the album were pretty good and the best thing was if someone could not withstand heavy music there were two awesome songs like “Years of Silence” and “Endless” with clean vocals, keyboard , acoustic guitar and almost non distorted guitar to make anybody ready to go for the destruction of “Scent Of A Dream” ( the title song ) and “A Timeless Frame”.

After a year in 2007,their another masterpiece “Circadian Rhythm” was released. It had melody packs like “Past Perfect” , “Fading Dreams” and perfect headbanger’s treat like “Falling” , “Point Of No Return”. Musically and lyrically both the albums were brilliant to established a sizable quality fan following for the band.

The band has evolved towards more matured music in last four yeas after the release of their their first 2 full length albums. And in May 2011 they offered the real treat to the world in form of “The Cimmerian Years”. Some of their old fans might be disappointed as this masterpiece sounds slightly different than the first two albums. More elements of Doom than black & death metal, which is blended properly with a touch of atmospheric aura in this album. Actually it is difficult to define a genre for this band, Thurisaz itself defines its own genre of uniqueness and collective blending. The Cimmerian Years’s journey starts with a beautiful instrumental “Broken” , grooving drums amalgamated with clean guitar and keyboard, slightly resemble with a bit of Indian Music. The journey speeds up to “My Precious Unknown”, a very important song of this album .A complete atmospheric extravaganza, along with the vocals alteration between death metal growls and black metal screams, with variable tempo and changes in the musical progression. Third song “Second Mirror” is a blend of lot of different patterns of music, symphonic black metal to melodic death metal. A perfectly elaborated Lyrics with the music and vocal progressions. Unadulterated layering of clean vocals and growls the signature of Thurisaz is obvious in this song.

Here the album takes a notable turn, “No Regrates” sharp guitar riffs surrounded by dark keyboard notes with intense growls and deep reverberating roar of Paul Kuhr (Novembers Doom),as a guest vocalist for this song. The song comes to a turn with complex keyboard lines, variable guitar and bass styles embedded by clean vocals groovy drumming. “No more vengeance, no more pain,I know your soul bleeds again. I know I’ve lost the game this time Because your fear is mine…” here comes the another doom influential song of the album “Fare Thee Well”, which starts with only clean vocals followed by slow, mournful guitars and bass dominating clean vocals which transform into deep growls and clean vocals with the variation of the music.

6th song of the album “Carnival Of Miscreation” a very nice song with nice guitar , bass line and drum harmonization and the keyboard notes makes it sound more melodic powerful at times with the change of vocals from heavy screams to clean. Guitar works in this song is mentionable . Next song is an unbelievable change in this album, a simple and easy listen for everyone , yes an acoustic song with clean vocals “Inner Voices”. The gentleness is carried forward to the next song “Unhealed”, which starts with nice keyboard notes and beautiful vocal notes of Els Blieck ( Inis Cathaigh ) which gets diversified with some brutal heavy vocals and heavy guitar riffs. An unique jazz touch is found in this song in between with the female vocals and drum grooves and brilliant blend of progressive black & melodic death metal.

This journey ends with my most favorite and logest ( approx. 9 mins ) song of the album ”A Glance Of Misperception”. The song starts with soft piano notes that combines with some slow intense sorrowful guitar line in the next moment and evolves into an emotionally acclaimed atmospheric aura, harmonized with intense clean vocals . For a short stint there is a growling segment which again turns back to the pre created theme of the song. The piece concludes with sung vocals soaring and echoing over the gloom, then slowly fades into silence.Thomas A. G. Jensen ( Saturnus) adds extra beauty as a guest vocalist here.

This album is a wonderful mix of emotions in the lyrics and melange of brilliant blending of different musical patterns. One among the best 3 albums that has been released in 2011 so far, other two are being ”These Stones Cry From The Earth” by Thence & . “ Aphotic” by Novembers Doom. If you like Opeth, Novembers Doom, Agalloch, Dark Tranquillity, Katatonia than definitely Thurisaz should be in your list. And this album is for serious sensible listeners, if you think you are one than “The Cimmerian Years” is for you.

Tracklist :

1. Broken
2. My precious Unknown
3. Second Mirror
4. No Regrets
5. Fare Thee Well
6. The Carnival Of Miscreation
7. Inner Voices
8. Unhealed
9. A Glance Of Misperception

Duration : Approx. 54 minutes

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The review was originally posted in Unseen Underground and cross posted in Unholy Maunder with the required permission of the author Nicky (nicky@unseenunderground.com)