Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Italy's brutal/symphonic horde, Fleshgod Apocalypse, have returned with their definitive epic masterpiece Agony. With only two releases under their belts, Oracles (2009) and the Mafia EP (2010), Fleshgod Apocalypse have already become one of the most talked about bands in the underground. Their unique blend of technical death metal with a symphonic elements have quickly made them a favorite with fans and critics alike. Now, after a slew of successful tours in Europe and the US, the band have unleashed their defining moment in the form of Agony!

Fleshgod Apocalypse was born in April of 2007 when they released a two track demo entitled Promo 07, which was later released as Behemoth, Origin, Dying Fetus, Hate Eternal, Suffocation, Napalm Death and many more.

In May 2008 the band entered 16th Cellar Studio again to record its first full-length album, Oracles. In December that same year the band decided to part ways with Neurotic Records and inked a deal with Willowtip Records. Oracles was released in April 2009 and the band started an intense show schedule all over Europe. First touring in support of God Dethroned in the Balkans, then with Vader and Marduk on the Funeral Nation tour, then finally they covered the UK and EIRE territories with their first headlining tour.

The Mafia EP was recorded, mixed and mastered again at 16th Cellar Studio in January 2010 and released by Willowtip Records. The release marked a big step forward for the band in every way. Right after the end of the recording session the band embarked on another European tour supporting Suffocation followed by a headlining tour of Russia.

After some Festivals and gigs in the summertime, the band flew overseas for their first tour of the US/Canada dubbed The Decibel Defiance Tour 2010. The tour took place in October/November 2010 with Suffocation, The Faceless, Through The Eyes Of The Dead and Decrepit Birth. Before the end of the year the band played several more gigs in Europe. 2011 opened with the Bonecrusher Fest, a European tour with Dying Fetus, Keep Of Kalessin, Carnifex, Annotations Of An Autopsy and Angelus Apatrida.

In November of 2010, the band signed a worldwide deal with Extreme Management Group, Inc. and began writing their second full length album. In May of 2011 the band signed a worldwide deal with Nuclear Blast Records and began wrapping up work on this album. During this time Francesco Ferrini, the pianist and orchestrator who has worked with the band from the beginning, joined Fleshgod Apocalypse as full-time member. This enabled them to have even more grand symphonic arrangements on Agony, taking the bands signature sound to new euphoric heights.

Agony hones in on the bands unique traits giving fans everything they could hope for and more. Marco Hasmann once again crafts an intricate depiction of the bands concept with his cover art. As always, the mix and mastering work of Stefano "Saul" Morabito from 16th Cellar Studios is so superb that you can expect to hear his name quite a bit more in the future. Make no mistake, Fleshgod Apocalypse are soon to be one of the leading forces in the extreme metal scene!

~ metalstorm

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Группа Fleshgod Apocalypse появилась на свет в апреле 2007 года. В состав новорожденного коллектива затесались участники таких небезызвестных актов, как Hour of Penance, Promaetheus Unbound и T. E. R. Спустя всего 5 месяцев со дня своего сотворения группа выпускает свою первую промо-запись "Promo ‘07" (записано и сведено в 16th Cellar Studio при помощи продюссера Stefano "Saul" Morabito). Результат себя долго ждать не заставил - и группа подписалась с Neurotic Records.

Так же два трека из промо были включены в 4-way сплит "Da Vinci Death Code", распростронявшийся усилиями Spew Records. Следует отметить, что именно этот сплит представил команду широкой общественности и вызвал интерес к группе. В начале 2008 года группа активно выступала как в Италии, так и за её пределами, поддерживая таких грандов, как Behemoth, Origin, Dying Fetus, Hate Eternal, Suffocation, Napalm Death и многих других.

В мае 2008 года группа возвращается в 16th Cellar Studio, чтобы приступить к записи своего дебютного альбома "Oracles". В декабре того же года было принято решение закончить сотрудничество с Neurotic Records и подписать сделку Willowtip Records, на которых легла ответственность за выпуск их дебютного альбома "Oracles". Таким образом, альбом, вышедший 30 марта 2009 года, распространяется в США и остальных частях света усилиями Willowtip Records, а контора Candlelight Records ответственна за выпуск диска в пределах Европы.

~ Last fm

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Summary: "Oracles" is a promising debut and solid first attempt by Fleshgod Apocalypse at combining technical death with traditional classical aspects.

With technical death metal recently becoming the genre du jour, over saturation of the genre with mediocre bands is rapidly occurring. However there are still some bands who are trying to bring new aspects to the genre and keep it interesting.

With their debut album Oracles, Italians Fleshgod Apocalypse present a combination of technical death metal interspersed with classical influences. These usually take the form of orchestral/piano passages at the start and end of the songs. Two examples of this are in “As Tyrants Fall” and “Embodied Deception”. The latter features a rapid piano run which is abruptly interrupted by the guitar intro riff. Wheras the former features a orchestral passage akin to something heard in “Swan Lake”. There are a number of other similar parts in other tracks which follow the same style, but most notable of all is the album’s title track, which is a two and a half minute piano piece which closes the album. The track highlights exactly what the band are trying to achieve. Personally, I think these elements are well used and help to add some diversity to the album and serve as a mood setter for the track, or to capture the mood at the end of the track. However some may feel that they are forced and just tacked on to provide something new.

The rest of the band’s sound revolves around the standard technical death metal riffs comprised of tremolo picking, stuttered staccato riffs, sweeps and harmonized lead parts. These are all performed solidly by both guitarists (one of whom also recorded the drums) and the tracks are written in a way that makes them catchy and memorable. There is enough variety in the riffs and leads to keep listeners interested and to prevent the songs from becoming indistinguishable from each other, it's clear that the band intend the guitars to be the focal point of the majority of the tracks.

The guitars are backed by a solid rhythm section of the usual death metal drumming of rapid fire double bass and blast beats. These are solid and provide a good foundation for the guitars to work over. However the bass is buried in the mix and is rarely heard apart from a few choice moments (Mid section of "Retrieveing My Carcass"). Despite this, the album still sounds great but may dissuade fans of technical death bass.

FA’s vocals, which are handled by guitarist Cristiano and bassist Paolo, sound similar to Necrophagist, Arghoslent and numerous other death metal bands, with the vocals being performed in one low register growl. This fits FA’s musical style and lyrical themes, which revolve around the standard morbid death metal themes and definitely serve as another instrument, mainly letting the guitars take centre stage. There is definitely nothing new brought to the table with the vocals and whilst some variation in future releases may benefit the band, the current style works well on this album.

Overall Fleshgod Apocalypse have produced a solid debut with Oracles. The album proves that the fusion of tech death and classical pieces can work well, and that technical death can still produce decent bands. The definite highlights of the album are the guitar work and the classical sections, however I would like to see the band experiment more with fusing the two styles and possibly with adding some vocal variation.

Oracles is a solid debut and building point for the Fleshgod Apocalypse. The album will please most tech death and standard death fans. With enough variety to keep them interested for the full 40 minutes, as well as containing enough nuances and memorable parts to warrant decent replay value.

~ sputnikmusic

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Summary: Fleshgod Apocalypse releases a solid EP that whets your appetite for classical music and brutal death metal mashups.

Fleshgod Apocalypse is a technical brutal death metal band from Italy, and they fuse their brand of death metal with some classical elements and sections.

Fleshgod Apocalypse is on this EP:
Tommaso Riccardi- Vocals and Guitars
Paolo Rossi- Vocals and Bass
Cristiano Trionferra- Vocals and Guitars
Francesco Paoli- Drums, Guitars, and Vocals
Francesco Ferinni- Piano

The opening track of this five song EP shows pretty much EXACTLY what Fleshgod is all about. “Thru Our Scars” opens with a barrage of drums and guitar. Then, it transitions into a short period of a violin group playing. It then goes back to the brutal riffing and drumming you encountered briefly and carries that throughout the rest of the song. But do not expect pure brutality all the way through interspersed with classical bits. In fact, the title track and outro, “Mafia,” is an entirely orchestral piece of haunting beauty. Also, it is surprisingly catchy at times. The chorus of “Abyssal” is probably the catchiest death metal chorus I’ve ever heard, and it WILL get stuck in your head for a long period of time.

The classical pieces are interspersed well, because Fleshgod Apocalypse is primarily, a death metal band. Do not expect huge amounts of time devoted to classical bits, but it will always fit well at the moment. The outro of “Abyssal” is great, with the guitar playing a slow melody over an orchestral background, and this song is probably the pattern for which all Fleshgod songs should follow. This outro also transitions great into the next song, “Conspiracy of Silence.” In fact, the transitions are great on all the songs, none of them feel jarring or out of place. Even transferring into the cover song works well. Speaking of the cover song, “Blinded by Fear,” it is probably the best At The Gates cover I’ve ever heard and it does justice to the original while still taking a new take on the material. And then abrupt works well, and followed by the beautiful, haunting, and melancholic “Mafia” makes all the previous brutal material almost take on a different light.

I have to make a special mention of the lead guitarists, Tommaso and Cristiano. They create lots of beautiful and technical riffs that are fantastic and well played. Every song just gleams from their impressive riffing and soloing. The drummer, Francesco Paoli, is a machine. He plays with technicality and brutality, unrelenting in his drumming.

With all this praise, my one real negative comment is that the EP leaves me wanting more. I want more of the technical, brutal, beautiful metal. While that is good, I feel it is a little too short, even for an EP. Also, apparently, this EP is dedicated to the fight against organized crime, which I applaud the guys for.

~ sputnikmusic

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Fleshgod Apocalypse - Discography (2009 - 2011)

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Summary: "You get someone that likes it and then someone that doesn't"

Give one listen to Agony, and you will realize that this isn't the same Fleshgod Apocalypse that brought long-haired metalheads their Oracles album and Mafia EP in 2009 and 2010, respectively. No, these Italians aren't the same at all. A symphony of albeit artificial strings and sweeping, storming piano chords picks listeners up on the instrumental, beckoning opener of “Temptation” and then leads them into what could only be described as a fully enthralling, cinematic extreme metal experience of pure Agony. According to vocalist and guitarist Cristiano Trionfera in a video interview with The Gauntlet just a couple of weeks ago in July, “This is the first time we are realizing the real idea of what we are,” when speaking of Agony; and then stating later when he was looking over the band's work leading up to its new album: “I like Oracle; I like Mafia. . . . But this time we realized our dream, to do, like, an orchestral, symphonic album, not just putting some keyboards on the songs.”

The interviewer for The Gauntlet, Jason Fisher, almost sounded as if he were smiling when he asked from behind the camera, “Did you guys ever get any backlash from, like, death metal purists?” Trionfera, who was with drummer Francesco Paoli, looked at his companion and mumbled a few words, and then looked back to Fisher, hesitantly: “Yeah, of course. Every time you change . . . you get someone that likes it and then someone that doesn't.”

Trionfera's last sentence will prove to be the summary line for many-a-review for Fleshgod Apocalypse's Agony – just watch: this is divisive stuff. As fast, pummeling, and, err, sweeping, as the music these Italians have brought to the table can be, many will be offset for the dive into Dimmu Borgir-like territory that the band has taken itself. First proper track “The Hypocrisy” offers listeners everything from forlorn, wailing male and female vocalists in the background to a full-on symphonic death metal assault, coming custom-fit with snarls, growls, distortion, and an impressive drumming performance from Paoli. And Agony hardly lets up from there either, too.

Look deeper into the strings and beneath the extra vocalist inclusions of Agony, however, and you will see an impressive improvement on Fleshgod Apocalypse's part since we last heard from them, though. When Trionfera alluded to the band actually writing the songs for Agony on the basis of the symphonics and the drums in the interview with Fisher – not being as just a hindsight inclusion – he wasn't joking. The frequent chord changes and the very flow of the songs themselves are impressive: Fleshgod Apocalypse's overall improvement in the area of their songwriting can't be denied.

For instance, Fleshgod Apocalypse love to slow the music down to bare keyboard symphonics so as to lure the listener into a restful state - and then, all the sudden they launch in for a death metal assault again, just as hell-raising as the last. This happens frequently on Agony: on the opener, “Temptation”, to the aforementioned storm of “The Hypocrisy”; from the “The Imposition” to “The Deceit”; from the riveting highlight “The Betrayal” to the mid-tempo, and welcomed respite, “The Forsaking”; and finally, from the prior to the final onslaught of symphonic death hurricane, the aptly-titled “The Oppression”. Of course, this slow-to-fast gimmick for the music is predictable on the fourth go around when it occurs on just one listen to Agony. However, it's the Italians' ability to do it as seamlessly as they do that deserves recognition.

If you thought this year's literal death metal symphony, The Great Mass, from Greece's Septic Flesh was impressive, Agony will have you clasping with all your might to your computer chairs – or wherever you may be in its attention – just in order to hang on. But the difference between The Great Mass and Agony, however, is that the prior actually uses a real choir and orchestra: Agony is, admittedly, a fake. But it does make up for it by not having a nasally frontman, like a certain Sotiris Vayenas, and at the end of the day, Fleshgod Apocalypse are the real ones that truly keep the death metal constituent of their sound as the main driving factor in the sound mix, whereas Septic Flesh get a little too lost in their show.

The negatives of Septic Flesh's work still apply to Fleshgod Apocalypse's bombastic cacophony on Agony, however: As pulse-pounding as these songs are, the symphonic elements make a mockery of the death metal atmosphere of the music at the end of the day, no matter which of the two is the more prevalent to be heard on the mix of the album. For years, this was a problem that single-manned Hollenthon and the very veterans of the style from Greece, Septic Flesh, were running into with their work to traditionalists' chagrin, and while the latter band's and this year's Agony by Fleshgod Apocalypse are showing signs that a balance can be reached between symphonics and death metal in the future – at least to a place where the end product sounds at least decent to traditionalists – a firm, pervasive air of cheesiness still runs through the sound of the album. And this is something that Agony just can't escape, despite its onslaught of distortion.

This is where Trionfera's quote and unofficial summary of the article comes into play: “You get someone that likes it and then someone that doesn't.” As well-played as Agony is, and as much as Fleshgod Apocalapse have improved as songwriters, the album itself cannot escape the fact that it is just another hybrid-mutant symphonic death metal circus. So while, yes, your typical cave-lurking Incantation-til-death metalhead will, as predicted, hate Agony, those that can stomach it will find a lot to love here. Instrumentally, the guitars and especially the drumming of Paoli are all top-notch, and while the symphonics are a wank-fest for Dimmu fans everywhere, the songwriting behind them and their fit into the music's flow is impressive. You won't do better, as far as symphonic death metal goes, then Agony, or The Great Mass too for that matter, but for its strengths, Agony easily gives the latter a run for its money. The Italians deserve a hand here - a job well done.

~ sputnikmusic

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