Apophis
Excess

So many bands go for lousy band names, but German death metallers Apophis kind of do the opposite. Apophis or Apep is from the ancient Egyptian mythology, the lord of chaos, enemy of Ra, illustrated by the serpent. A character in the television series Stargate SG1, and also a near-Earth asteroid that for a while was believed to be at risk of colliding with earth in a close future. I find a clever dark name like that raises interest and makes a band seem more interesting. The new album is called Excess and it is the first since 2005, the debut was released back in 1993. I read that: “the album does not sound like any other death metal record of the last 5 years but has its own sound - the Apophis sound - which is nevertheless contemporary, brutal, catchy, and competitive.” Such statements in the press material always begs me to investigate if it is so – so what about this one?

It is death metal of the classic brutal kind, mid- to up-tempo songs like it often is on such albums. The vocalist is more articulate and varied than many of his peers but bear in mind that proponents of death metal are usually not varied at all. This album isn’t that varied either, but it has a relative catchiness in the brutal style, and the sound is more modern than many of their peers. That means that it is probably somewhat more exciting than your average death metal release, but that the difference isn’t that large.

I think this album could have been shorter but if you haven’t released an album in such a long time there might be much that wants out and harder perhaps to select from them. I thought that Excess offered some interesting and fairly exciting touches when I first played it, but it is an album I grow tired with fairly quickly as it kind of melts together into a mass. It has pretty good songs, a better singer than many of their peers, and a modern sound, but there is nothing that really stands out. I don’t think that this album sounds unlike any other death metal album of the last five years, pretty much the opposite even though they do have some exciting features compared with most of the genre.

For any casual listener this album offers nothing different or exciting, for the more initiated it might be more exciting though as Apophis has their positive sides. I think that this album will be worth checking out for the fan of the genre, and I wouldn’t be overly surprised if the long-time fans will see this as a very welcome release.

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