Oh how long I waited for this one to be published! I am talking about the Czech band Edain's second full length album. Their stirring debut release, the full lengther 'Through Thought and Time' was released in Summer 2009. I began to crave for another one from this band, but the years went on... I got Edain's next release 'The Sulphur Breather' in December 2011, and it turned out to be a bad and bland EP. However, I still wanted another Edain album! Then, about one year and a half later (in Summer 2013), I opened a small package and there it was: The sophomore Edain album, 'Of Those Who Worship Fire'! I quit listening to whatever I was listening to and inserted the new Edain CD. Damn, the band was back! But what soon happened, was far from a fulfillment...

The album starts with familiar Edain stylings, which include avant-gardish, dark heavy metal and progressive alteration. The guitar and bass works conjure up quite an artistic, antiquated feel, that makes me think of something like Hieronymus Bosch (the Russian band, not that fellow!) and old Dark Tranquillity: Both the riffs and the lead guitars are melodic and engrossing. It simply feels archaic yet timeless. The band isnt't very heavy at its heaviest, but they sound raw in a live way. However, the vocals are considerably raw, compared to anything else; non-melodic and unvarying brawling (almost all of the vocals on the album are like this, except for a few cleaner sung lines). The song is rather multidimensional, in a good way, but then comes a jazz break and it just happens to be a totally irrelevant one! I need to point out, that jazz music isn't my thing, not at all. Well, except for Pestilence's Spheres' (1993)...

Then come the songs number 2 and 3, 'Critical Intelligence' parts 1 and 2. Basically, on these ones Edain turn into an instrumental jazz rock band. These songs sound like they are conversations of instruments. However, that does not mean that they sound uniform, but that's not the jazz music's intention in my opinion. It's more like about jesting, about bursting out randomly. If not all the time, then at times at the least. Some metal lead guitar and even riffing on the latter one spotted. However, these two songs simply do not work for me very well at all.

'Of Elements and Men' take a more metal delivery. It mixes progressive metal and groovier Joe Satriani style hard rock riffing. Plus another fucking jazz part... Anyway, the song is overall quite a juggernaut. As the song differs from the earlier tracks, the album starts to be a really bumpy ride. And that is hardly ever a good thing. But a turn towards better things can happen. And this happens next, with the instrumental song 'On the Cold Floor' (half of the album's songs are without vocals; another weird fact about it). It mixes avant-garde stuff with Metallica style heavy rock and also thrashing, making it an interesting piece. Together with the opener, the last track 'Silent Weapons for Silent Wars' is the only debut-style song. At least partly so... It contains a lot of dissonant, mutating riffs, that remind of late Voivod guitar-genius Denis "Piggy" D'Amour's unique playing style, plus tempo changes. It also has more astral parts and most epic metal bit on the album. I liked a lot of Polish progressive metal band Animations' album 'Reset Your Soul', and here Edain remind me about them, too. At least the album ends with style, and the stylings which I like.

The instrumentalists' performances are great. They are skilled and they can switch between the music styles well. The vocals fit nicely, no matter how similar they are for almost all the time. Somehow the vocalist is characteristic. Sound-wise this is organic and live, as mentioned. The watercolour painting cover artwork is beautiful, but doesn't really blurt out how the album sounds like. The lyrics need a special mention: They are about societies, political economics and Illuminati. About how we the people are tyrannized over.

The album feels uneven and cluttered with all different styles it has. Only the opener and the closer are such performances from the band I expected to hear from them. It's a short one, too. And it also feels weird, that only half of the songs have the vocals in them. This definitely feels like the band was lost and could not get the job done as it should have been done. Hopefully the next time around will be what I wanted this to be!

Rating: 6 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
01/06/2014 01:22