Serpent's Embrace

Album Review

The work of Germany's Agathodaimon is fraught with moody twists and turns, and their fourth album, Serpent's Embrace, certainly proves as much, moving from start to finish in a series of slow climbs and descents from sonic valleys to soaring crests, and back again. Opening with the curiously named "Cellos for the Insatiable," the album introduces a wide-open brand of black metal, so deeply layered with interweaving guitar riffs, keyboard lines, and differing vocal styles, that it often conjures thoughts of dark mini-symphonies. This penchant for packing each song with ultra-varied compositional entrails carries through into ensuing offerings like "Rebirth," "Light Reborn," and the quasi-industrial, almost trip-hop-like (take your pick) title track; all of them ebbing and flowing between those aforementioned peaks and troughs. On "Faded Years," the band's synths attain saccharine-sweet results, which, along with clean vocals by guitarist Sathony, may pose something of a challenge for more aggressive-minded black metal fans. Likewise, this extreme contingent may positively balk at the unorthodox treatment given the supple "Solitude" — which combines a female lead vocal with Gothic piano melodies and an electronic drumbeat. Totally at odds with this, next number "Limbs of Stare" hurls itself into the abyss with full black/death metal strength, delivering one of the album's top performances in the process. Elsewhere, the melody infused "The Darkness Inside" duplicates the classic In Flames template to a "T"; the mid-paced, fretboard-and-harmonics-laced "Bitter End" is reminiscent of Greek black metal titans Rotting Christ, and syrupy-named closer "Feelings" pretty much flirts with just about all of the band's many tricks. In other words, Serpent's Embrace does not play by pre-established black metal rules; its diversity is bound to attract and repel in almost equal measures. But for that very reason, it's deserving of accolades, not only as a continually intriguing L.P, but as a genre-busting exercise, to boot.