Review: Aeons of Ashes ”Currents” [Running Wild Productions]

A Suffocating Display of Power and Growth…

Aeons of Ashes have come a long way. Since at least the release of their full-length album The Wasteland Chronicles back in 2023, media outlets have become more aware of their existence, with local and international magazines writing about their modern take on melodic death metal.

With the recent addition of vocalist July Fellner, providing a second set of raspy extreme vocals alongside founding member Tim Sklenitzka’s deeper bellows, the rather unusual pairing of a harsh male/female dynamic atop a melodeath foundation has certainly made some waves in the metal underground. Their respectable qualities as vocalists in their respective registers (both voices are easily distinguishable) are pretty obvious and their performances certainly not lacking in passion and professional delivery.

You felt that lingering, BUT coming from a mile away, right? Well, describing this is actually not an easy feat; I do want to put the focus on the things this EP does right, though I need to point out my elephant in the room: there’s a massive amount of lyrics (and therefore vocal output) crammed into these four songs. I’m not criticizing the effort put into the words themselves, but the balance between the instrumental passages and the excess of lyrical content does seem to be quite off to my ears.

Melodic death metal (with a slightly increased deathcore) element is the main ingredient for this hard-hitting and modern extreme metal creation, with some of the best melodies of being offered in the opening track “Ephemeral” right away. I’d love to hear more of these swirling riffs and leads in full bloom, but the vocal duo takes the spotlight pretty early on the record. Their performance gels well with the more simplistic breakdown passages as they tend to be adeptly syncopated with the drum grooves, but more intricate twists and turns tend to suffer from the overarching vocal presence.

So while the EP is pretty rich in technical complexity and atmospheric depth, these issues tend to shrink the space that these ideas can present themselves in, leading to a certain lack of memorability and hooks. Quite a shame, since the production level on Currents is A-level and surely the best they’ve had since their inception. A clear, yet muscular and powerful mix with enough clarity and edge to warrant no further criticism – it’s definitely not any technical wrongdoings that (at times) make this EP an enduring test, it just doesn’t pull back on the vocal force often enough to allow instrumental ideas to unfold properly.

It hurts me to say that I still can’t seem to love this band more, since Aeons of Ashes is basically the most local band I’ve ever reviewed (same damn city even!), but I haven’t yet managed to embrace their sound fully without at least something coming in the way. I’m glad that they have their audience by now, are well respected in my area, and offer some really cool live shows and concepts, often ahead of their peers…at least rest assured that I’ll keep trying to get both feet through that door.

Fans of a more modern (and certainly not Gothenburg-standard tropes) melodic death metal sound should of course check out this EP, since the chances of them loving this more than I seem to be capable of (yet?) are indeed pretty high.

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