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Alarum - Eventuality
Release: 2005Label: Earache Records
By: Johell
Posted: Jul 17, 2005
Alarum comes from Australia and have been around since 1996. Alarum plays technical and progressive jazz fusion blended with death/thrash metal. "Eventuality" came out in 2004 in Australia and USA, but will be released in Europe through Earache Records in July 2005.
What hits the listener directly is the influences of Cynic, Atheist, Pestilence, Martyr and Oblivion. Don't get me wrong, what Matt Racovalis does on Drums, Mark Palfreyman with the vocals and bass, Mark A. Evans Does on guitar and guitar synth as well as Scott Young does on guitar aren't just a copy of the above mentioned great groups. Alarum has its own talent, many good ideas, plenty of energetic riffs, basslines that could have been on Cynic's "Focus" album. Not to forget the many clean passages which gives a great aspect to the whole atmosphere on this album.
The vocals are screamed and the clean vocals appears every now and then to keep things interesting, the record contains many great and nice composed solos. The drumming is tight and there are many well placed jazzy parts. The whole production is very clear as well.
"Eventuality" opens with 'Velocity', clean guitar directly followed by heavy riffing and plenty of good melodies, breaks and solos all the way through this track. The vocals are both growled and clean.
The tempo on 'Sustained Connection' is faster and the solos damn good. 'Lost Pleiad' is a short instrumental track. Then we have 'Receiver', a short kind of intro takes us directly to some heavy riffing and drumming and the vocals are clean. In this good technical track, you'll find many parts à la Atheist and Cynic.
There is a Jazzy intro on 'Remote Viewing', the track gets atmospheric right after, spoken words that seems to come from an unknown place, and the track explodes with an incredible bass line and many twisted technical solos and delightning drumming. A damn good track.
'Inertial Grind' is the fastest track on "Eventuality". Much speed and aggression full of great technical aspects are delivered here. A hell of a good track. Another short and nice instrumental follows named 'cygnus x-1'. A clean guitar opens 'Throughout The Moment' which is one of the more laidback songs, with a lot of melodic guitar passages.
An incredible bass line opens 'Woven Imbalance', here is a demonstration of how technical this band can be, solos and tight drumming, and yes, the bass is very present and audible during the whole album. Back to an instrumental piece, 'Boundless Intent Part 1', which is very short but makes the bridge directly to 'Boundless Intent Part 2'. Another technical and fast track which again displays very good musical skills from this impressive band.
Another complex piece that truly resounds is 'Subject To Change', the whole sound is very clean and the guitars are twirling around while the bass and drumming keeps up the tempo with many technical breaks. Almost the same picture on 'Event Duality' which contains many good moments again and on this track the vocal gets a cool effect.
Two tracks left, with the instrumental 'Audio Synthesis' and 'Reconditioned' which spreads a good feeling, even if complex parts appears and more aggressive moments as well. Don't stop the album too fast and after 20 minutes of silence, you will find a beautiful ghost track.
Take a listen to them if you're into techno death metal, you will press repeat many, many times to catch all the notes Alarum has to offer. A surprisingly good album.
What hits the listener directly is the influences of Cynic, Atheist, Pestilence, Martyr and Oblivion. Don't get me wrong, what Matt Racovalis does on Drums, Mark Palfreyman with the vocals and bass, Mark A. Evans Does on guitar and guitar synth as well as Scott Young does on guitar aren't just a copy of the above mentioned great groups. Alarum has its own talent, many good ideas, plenty of energetic riffs, basslines that could have been on Cynic's "Focus" album. Not to forget the many clean passages which gives a great aspect to the whole atmosphere on this album.
The vocals are screamed and the clean vocals appears every now and then to keep things interesting, the record contains many great and nice composed solos. The drumming is tight and there are many well placed jazzy parts. The whole production is very clear as well.
"Eventuality" opens with 'Velocity', clean guitar directly followed by heavy riffing and plenty of good melodies, breaks and solos all the way through this track. The vocals are both growled and clean.
The tempo on 'Sustained Connection' is faster and the solos damn good. 'Lost Pleiad' is a short instrumental track. Then we have 'Receiver', a short kind of intro takes us directly to some heavy riffing and drumming and the vocals are clean. In this good technical track, you'll find many parts à la Atheist and Cynic.
There is a Jazzy intro on 'Remote Viewing', the track gets atmospheric right after, spoken words that seems to come from an unknown place, and the track explodes with an incredible bass line and many twisted technical solos and delightning drumming. A damn good track.
'Inertial Grind' is the fastest track on "Eventuality". Much speed and aggression full of great technical aspects are delivered here. A hell of a good track. Another short and nice instrumental follows named 'cygnus x-1'. A clean guitar opens 'Throughout The Moment' which is one of the more laidback songs, with a lot of melodic guitar passages.
An incredible bass line opens 'Woven Imbalance', here is a demonstration of how technical this band can be, solos and tight drumming, and yes, the bass is very present and audible during the whole album. Back to an instrumental piece, 'Boundless Intent Part 1', which is very short but makes the bridge directly to 'Boundless Intent Part 2'. Another technical and fast track which again displays very good musical skills from this impressive band.
Another complex piece that truly resounds is 'Subject To Change', the whole sound is very clean and the guitars are twirling around while the bass and drumming keeps up the tempo with many technical breaks. Almost the same picture on 'Event Duality' which contains many good moments again and on this track the vocal gets a cool effect.
Two tracks left, with the instrumental 'Audio Synthesis' and 'Reconditioned' which spreads a good feeling, even if complex parts appears and more aggressive moments as well. Don't stop the album too fast and after 20 minutes of silence, you will find a beautiful ghost track.
Take a listen to them if you're into techno death metal, you will press repeat many, many times to catch all the notes Alarum has to offer. A surprisingly good album.
Rating: 7/10
Alarum website
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