Amiliyah - Departure (Review)

The brighter and more pompous the cover, the worse the product that is hidden under it. This pattern can often be traced in the modern market. But works of art are a special topic.

My rating: 72/100     Best song: Ever

amiliyah.com

Four months after the great album Hidden Door (2017), guys from band Amiliyah again release a new album. I can’t know exactly how they work, but this is a very dare tactic: it's hard to write, record, process, arrange and start selling 8 songs in 4 months. And while listening to this album, you begin to understand what made them fit in such a short time.

Album structure begins with a cover arts. If earlier the cover arts looked dark, gloomy, mysterious, now they look very bright, colorful, pompous. About the general idea of ​​album can be said about the same. Here you can hear not very complex (sometimes even pop) patterns on extended range guitars. This album looks quite vigorously, which is very uncharacteristic both for gothic metal in general and for this band in particular. Oh, I completely forgot, you can still notice very simple naming of songs.

Composer's work is good. There are several unsuccessful decisions here, but overall the work is good. It's noticeable that composer tried well. But it seems that the efforts were not enough for the whole album - the logic in some methods of solving artistic tasks remains a mystery to me.

Vocalist is also good. There are a lot of different sounding here. In general, a vocalist has good abilities - it's very difficult to find flaws. The only awkward moment: something is missing at the range top. Maybe these are the features of the performance technique. Maybe these are the features of the equipment and processing. But to me it sounds weird.

Instrumental parts - everything here is not as predictable as it may seem. Yes, I tend to see this as a positive connotation. However, everything is not so simple. In instrumental parts there is something interesting, but the pop patterns in some segmants spoil the charm. Guitars - there is something interesting here. For example, speedy scale at the beginning of 4 tracks. Or an interesting main riff in track 6 with triplets and fifths - it's simple, but interesting. Also there is something simple, but not interesting, for example, 3 tracks are “zeros” with scales, and in some segments with power chords. I understood how it's played while listening. There is also a synthesizer here. Here you can hear an industrial (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 tracks) synthesizer, strings (2, 3, 4 tracks), wind (2, 6 tracks). Not very much variety. Rhythm section is very intense. Here you can hear a standard heavy metal drumming (3, 5, 8 tracks), a blast beat (2, 4, 6, 7 tracks), as well as some inserts of something interesting. However, it didn’t do without pop patterns in some segments of 3 tracks. Also in track 5 you can hear the drum machine. I can't understand this: there is a lot of industrial synthesizer in this release, why else?

This is just a good job with some bad decisions. Well, many don't even have this. But after a great album, quickly releasing “just good” - why? For quantity? Or one for art and another for high sales? We will not know the answer. But one thing is for sure: you should not simplify the patterns in some places to increase the popularity in general - you will find only disappointment. I have an assumption that if this album would have been released not in the spring of 2018, but in the spring of 2019, then some ideas and solutions would have moved on a different, more successful side. But for now we see what we see.