Rapheumets Well
The Elder's Anthology

Sci-fi rockers Rapheumets Well release an anthology over their three first albums, kind of like a best of in a way but with remastered and remixed songs. I did write about them in 2016 and described their album The Exile as a fairly strong album or as a slightly less good version of Dimmu Borgir and I do believe that could be said about this album as well. And like said The Exile I think this album was given a pretty drab cover artwork, but I guess you should not judge the book by its cover and this one sounds better than it looks.

The music is death metal, melodic with spacey keyboards and orchestral addition, some female vocals and an all-powerful growlist who often overpower the sound of the album. The sound is big and modern but you really need to listen to really hear the depth the band puts into the song as you mostly just notice the growls, just like the last time I wrote about the band. The vocals are probably the band’s biggest weakness and perhaps the sensation that the album is a tad on the longer side, it has variation and depth but if you don’t pay full attention it is easy to miss and the question is if the album really invites you to pay full attention to it – I am not so sure.

It is a good album; it may not be a shining beacon of light all alone in the dark but good nonetheless. The songs work even though one has to sometimes look past the growling, I still don’t really like the growling but the other elements of the album, the really good elements makes the growls bearable. Although the long playing time could be trying for the one you just casually listens to the album as the vocals kind of overpower the rest of the elements and that can be trying. But if you have liked what the band has done before I am quite sure that you will find this album most appealing as well, they bring a bit of new life into the songs from the previous albums but I still sense it could have been a bit more exciting than it is.

In the end I think they deliver more or less the same as they have done before, I also think that the quality is quite similar. This is a fairly good album I think, it may not stand out as much as it could have been but it works, the songs work but for the next album I really would like to see more interesting growls.

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