I guess it would be very trivial to say that modern underground is not what it was years before. Everyone who has a computer nowadays can create music, so it’s more about skills and talents. The international project Chaos Of Cosmos, which releases its second album named The Ultimate Multiverse, is a good example for it: nothing can obstruct these guys from creating music, not the distance, nor the lack of complete line-up (forgive me my pathos).
Chaos Over Cosmos are Rafał Bowman (guitars, keyboards, programming) and Joshua Ratcliff (vocals, songwriting). But the nuance is these guys have never met in real life: Rafał lives in Poland and Joshua in Australia. Nevertheless, it doesn’t prevent these guys to create music. According to them, Chaos Over Cosmos plays “progressive metal with electronic, and technical/melodic death influences”, which is true, in general, but there is a little bit more of things – I’ll talk about it later.
So, The Ultimate Multiverse consists of six tracks that last approximately 40 minutes. Frankly, such tracks’ length disquiet me sometimes, especially when we’re talking about Progressive (because of my poor musical education I can’t always fully appreciate long jazz improvisations, complex progressions and other Prog stuff). However, this album surprises not only with musicians’ techniques but with lots of elements from other genres also, often interwoven seamlessly. All this can be heard already on the first track “Cascading Darkness”: started with Rafał’s virtuoso guitar solo, it continues with fast Progressive riff and atmospheric synths. Joshua growls and sings clean alternately (I guess, he is much better with extreme vocals than with clean ones) while the main music theme changed a couple of times, going from Melodic Death and Metalcore elements to Progressive Metal, where it stops.
“One Hundred” is much more Death than Prog: there are plenty of melodic moments and catchy hooks. Keyboards add some sci-fi “space” atmosphere to the song. Rafał’s solos are stunning also, but there are numerous sharp moves and in the end, there is some desynchrony between music and vocals (though I think it’s rather “not a bug but a feature”). “Worlds Apart”, in its turn, fluctuates between Melodic Death and Metalcore while dismal synths make the song not only brutal but very dark also. And if not the drums, it will be stunning: extremely fast and heavy they rather remain jackhammer and impression from this song is smeared. The same thing happens in “Consumed”; there are much more Progressive elements, but Metalcore and Death Metal also can be heard.
“We Will Not Fall” surprises with its heroic atmosphere and melodies, reminding, let’s say, Ensiferum. A little bit Folk-ish keyboards add some epicness and heroism. The music is very solid and technical here, while the drums spoil the impression a little bit along with Joshua’s clean vocals. But overall “We Will Not Fall” stands out amidst other songs with its epicness. And The Ultimate Multiverse ends with short (compared to other tracks) instrumental “Asimov”, where Rafał shines bright. This melodic Progressive with dreamy “sci-fi” synths and technical solos demonstrate virtuoso playing of this undoubtedly talented guitarist.
Let me end where I began: Chaos Over Cosmos is a great example of using modern technologies, what is called, for the greater good and they use it very well. Of course, there are some things to improve like drums programming, clean vocals and attempts to shove as much elements from the various genres as possible. But at the same time two guys from different continents manage to create very diverse, interesting, technical and memorable music, which is definitely worth much more attention.
The Ultimate Multiverse will be released on June, 20 via Narcoleptica Productions.
If you really would like to support Antichrist, you can just Share our article.
You can also support Antichrist by sending a couple bucks to cover some webhosting expenses. =>> PayPal
