it is amazing in which quality the artisan era pumps out one tech death metal pearl after the other. my latest purchase was the new flub record, which i will post about in due time. the record at hand, aethereus debut called "absentia", was already released last year and i am just late to the party. that fact doesn't lower the brilliancy of that album a single bit.
i more or less ordered the record blindly. i listened to one song at some early point in 2019 and put it on my mental wantlist. a month ago i finally pulled the trigger remembering vaguely what the band sounded like. when the record arrived a few weeks later and i dropped the needle on it for the first time, i was surprised at how fantastic "absentia" flowed from my speakers.
the guys take some references from bands like rivers of nihil or fallujah and then just write great songs with dense atmosphere, riffs for days and majestic melodies. not necessarily innovative but really good at working with what is already there. a shame that the retail colour-way looks so unspectacular. in comparison to the fancy splatter versions, this one is a bit boring. it doesn't keep me from spinning this bad boy, though. great one! 250 copies made. the artisan era. 2018.
