THURISAZ – The Cimmerian Years

Thurisaz, hailing from West Flanders, Belgium, has been tangled with their cold atmosphere almost right from their start, and their new album, The Cimmerian Years shares the beauty of what can be called Atmospheric Extreme Metal. Don’t get this wrong, Thurisaz is certainly not the first to implement these elements, as you might have noticed, however, the music on this album shows quite an immense effort to write and perform this kind of diverse musical form. Even though you can’t judge a book by its cover, the artwork of this release might drag a hint of what is coming next.

The frosty state that The Cimmerian Years holds didn’t cause this album to become a sludgy or boring feature, yet it brought lots of deep emotions that lowered its extremeness to a more subdued level, and even though gloomy, it brought some life to the darkness. Not that the band’s extreme features, such as the top of the line growls, weren’t top notch, yet, their on-going direction, which partly accompanied melancholic melodies, amazing clean vocal verses, a modern Norwegian Metal sound and profound keyboards, rose up on top of others that have tried to do the same as they did.

The majority of the album is pretty good, however only two tracks really put Thurisaz on the Metal map. “Fare Thee Well” along with its follower “The Carnival Of Miscreation” were the band’s emotional and inspirational tracks. The music and performances were excellent, especially when it came down to what Kobe Cannière and the Theuwen brothers were showing with their vocalic abilities, and the lead guitar efforts that were inserted at the right moments. With those two goodies, this band showed that they are on the right road to become one of better bands on the finer side of Extreme Metal.

For all your Metal fans out there that are still distasteful with the likes of Extreme Metal, Thurisaz might be your ticket into this interesting world of Metal music. They are certainly not the first to come around with this musical direction, yet, judging on what they did on this new album, it seems as if they are playing a part in something older than themselves.

Tracklist

1. Broken
2. My Precious Unknown
3. Second Mirror
4. No Regrets
5. Fare Thee Well
6. The Carnival of Miscreation
7. Inner Voices
8. Unhealed
9. A Glance of Misperception

Lineup

Pepijn De Raeymaecker – Drums, Whispers
Mattias Theuwen – Guitar, Vocals
Kobe Cannière – Keyboards, Clean Vocals
Peter Theuwen – Guitar, Vocals
Hannes Leroy – Bass