Short Reviews [Amiensus - 2024 - "Reclamation. Part II"]

A few months after the release of the first album in this set came the second. The eagle-eyed may notice that on the cover of each release it just says "Reclamation", with the "Part 1" and "Pt. II" coming through in the press release but I am not sure if that is also on the rear of the cover. Note, one way to upset people with OCD is to change the way things are named – this should have been "Part 2", or the other should have been "Pt. I", these things are important! Anyway, I don't know why this was released as a separate album, as overall it could have been a double given the first is 51 minutes in length and this is 38, and the gap between the two is just a few months with the first one released in April and this in August so they were obviously recorded at the same time with the same line-up. It is no surprise that this is very much a companion to the first album, yet possibly this is a little more extreme with at times a larger gap in styles between the brusque black metal and the more commercial elements. There are times when the metal is bombastic and massively over the top, others where it is far more restrained and containing acoustic elements. The album commences with some throat singing and a feeling of monks undertaking dark works as we crunch into Judas Priest-style riffs with great percussion before the vocals move us in a different direction – the keyboards here have a very important part to play, adding real finesses. Due to a mistake in downloading on my part, this is the album I have played a great deal, far more than the first, and there is something here which demonstrates more polish, while also somehow having more aggression. As with the first album in this pairing, there is a real risk that both proggers and metalheads will pass this by saying one genre has been too infected by the other, but I actually believe there is something quiet special in their approach, and the result is something which those who are prepared to give genre mash-ups a try will get a great deal from. I have not heard their earlier releases, but they may indeed deserve investigation if these are anything to go by. This is definitely a band am going to keep an eye on.