Album review: Septic Flesh - Titan (Deluxe Edition)

 

 

 

Tracklist:

 

Disk 1

 

01. War in Heaven

02. Burn
03. Order of Dracul
04. Prototype
05. Dogma
06. Prometheus
07. Titan
08. Confessions of a Serial Killer
09. Ground Zero
10. The First Immortal

 

 

Disk 2 - The Titan Symphony

 

01. Dogma of Prometheus

02. A Prototype in Heaven

03. The First Inmortal

04. Order of a Serial Killer

05. The Burning

 

 

Six years have passed since Septic Flesh appeared again in the scene in 2008. With a new style, the band leaped from a dark melodic metal to a particular symphonic one. The change was very noticeable indeed, but, for some, also the quality loss.

 

For us, Sumerian Daemons is still, and by far, the best band's album. It represents the ultimate evolution of a style seeded many albums before. Really, all the previous ones seem to be just the right path to that magnificent work.

 

With Communion, both the sound and style changed drastically, and so, the band started a new path, moving away from their former distinctive style. Titan seems to be the logic result of that way -I wouldn't say "evolution"-, with a deep mix of metal and symphonic instruments never before shown in their previous albums, where always the metal was predominant.

 

The version we are reviewing here is the "deluxe edition", which comes in two disks; one, the main album, containing ten songs; and the other, called "The Titan Symphony", containing five "orchestral versions" from the main album. Let's talk first about the central disk.

 

As just said, the album is composed of ten pieces. Each one has an average playtime of 4:30 minutes, what makes a very good pace when listening to the album, being hard to get bored or be left wanting more. The total album length is of 45 minutes and 25 seconds, what's average by today standards, and enough for a full length album. As is usual to the band, no song is an intro, interlude or epilogue, and one is not needed anyway. So, roughly, there is sufficient content here, even though it's divided in only ten songs. However, it is the quality of the content what's really important.

 

The structure of each song is traditional or based in a traditional one (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus or "AABA") , even though there is a lot of variation. Indeed, "Order Of Dracul" has a verse-chorus-bridge-chorus conformation and "Prometheus" have just a chorus-verse-chorus-bridge; "Prototype", "Dogma" and "Confessions Of A deal Serial Killer" seems to have no bridge, so they seem to have an evolution more than a stiff structure. It's always refreshing to hear something out of the scheme followed by the big Pop music -yes, Septic Flesh is part of the "pop" genre-, so these variations are always welcome, even more in a work with so many classic music elements like Titan.

 

Beyond the design, the composition is very complex. Every verse, chorus and bridge is made of different pieces or sections, adding great diversity to each song. No melody or riff is played too often or for too long, making hard some times to recognize the chorus on a song, verging with, but never touching, a progressive style. That’s not necessarily something good or bad; I'd say its more a thing of taste -even though, there is a reason why every pop band follows the same composition pattern, and that’s "easy listening"-.

 

The use of symphonic resources -a lot- is present, but not quite like in the past disks. These are strongly present trough all the album, being in every song an essential part. The mix is great, well done and gorgeous; it shines from start to finish, but especially in the beautiful melodic choruses. From a technical standpoint, it's awesome what these artists have achieved, but never giving up the beauty.

 

However, it's really hard for us to say it's an "evolution" what Septic Flesh did with this album. It's a great work, that may easily please old fans and newcomers, but not alike. The past albums had much more in common between them, but this one separates a lot from them, being almost an inflection point in the discography. We really miss in this production the sound of that old guitar and the melodic darkness delivered in songs like Magic Loves Infinity, The Last Time and Oceans Of Grey. Also, we believe there's no song in Titan as great as any of those. The album has some good songs that shine above all others, like Burn or Prometheus, but none shines by itself as does Oceans Of Grey or Therianthropy in the previous work, or as The Eldest Cosmonaut in Fallen Temple.

 

About the second disk, "The Titan Symphony", is composed of five songs, supposedly "orchestral versions" of their album pairs. However, those aren't really "versions" but "parts" from the songs. These are nothing else than the orchestral base used in every piece, cut and slightly edited, but not versions, which is very disappointing, of course. The consequence is obvious: the songs seem to be bland and empty, with almost complete absence of percussion or of any instrument that marks the rhythm, overall being of poor quality. Making a deluxe edition with these songs, and charging more for that, seems to me, not a bad, but an ugly way of making money.

 

The sound, not being superb, is pretty good. The mixing and mastering were well made, so every instrument and sound is easily heard and can be distinguished from others. Nevertheless, It could be said that it's "flat", and indeed it is, a little. Since Communion, the deep bass of drums, strong vocals, and reverb, characteristics of previous compilations, were exchanged for a balanced audio spectrum, what's not necessarily bad. The new sound came along with a new symphonic style, and it did very well, and it still does, making room for the numerous sounds and instruments playing at the same time, and rarely overlapping each other.

 

Overall, Septic Flesh once again delivers great quality in a full length album, through great composition and good audio quality. It's not their greatest work, but it's one of their best, no doubt. The mix of metal and symphonic music was never before so deep, going far beyond the simple sum of different instruments and vocals.


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