According to a recent survey conducted by the Institute for the Study winter, Extreme Metal's favorite subject matters are: 1) death and hell (54.66%) , 2) depression, loneliness and madness (44.24%), 3) matches the France national football team (1.1%). The Russian trio epitimia has not opted for the latter theme is by far the most terrifying, but for the second. The name of their third album, Faces of Insanity , also leaves a priori not too much room for doubt as to the subject matter. I say "in principle "because the lyrics are in Russian, the singer could actually scream recipes apple pie without me noticing. What is certain, however, is the fact that the post metal black metal trend of good quality glue practiced at times quite well with the subject, but only at times. 

It is fairly clear: we can not say that music played on Faces Of Insanity, even if it tackles the subject unattractive madness, causes a profound and lasting discomfort in the listener, the fault mainly because the artists based the bulk of the album on the mixture black / noisy (or " post-black ") and that Katatonia popularized bands like Agalloch have developed. Thus, "Epikrisis II" and "III Epikrisis" would not offsuit on Brave Murder Day or Ashes Against the Grain, and even if the titles are well executed, following the literal tags in a genre is not the best way to destabilize the listener. That said, two important points emerge: firstly, except for the annoying "Epikrisis VI", all titles take the road well: this base are added post-black with a lot of happiness more melodic elements of classic black, a female voice the most beautiful effect ("Epikrisis I") or black-good melodies of atmospheric doom like "Epikrisis V" and start a bit surprising. 

Moreover, there are still similarly, both sides of the album, some effects that disturb the placidity of a little one who listens to the album. First, the production, a little cheap and not breathing sizzling wholeness and happiness. Secondly, the fact that the songs are sung in Russian (language, by the way, fits well in black) for a vocalist to record very serious and actually still inhabited by some sort of fury, aid that the listener is a little out of his " comfort zone . " Finally, a second voice, totally hysterical, is used twice on the album, and, oh surprise, the two pieces in question are suddenly more disturbing dimension. The end of "Epikrisis IV" is in this respect a great success, and we will say no more to spare a surprise ... As for "DS: Schizophrenia," we can say that most contain the voice downright unhealthy, it is just the summary of what is known to the group, alongside melodic parts consistently more dissonant moments typical of this noisy music. Suffice to say we would have liked a little rab such securities ... 

If the goal was to epitimia his audience feel the agonies which are immersed in the mentally ill, the mission is only half filled. There are certainly some interesting and really confusing, the (too) few hysterical voice and the language used is not the smallest, but good music Katatonia even embellished with nice little melodic passages of real time black Tonight's Decision , it is still not what more ... crazy. The album is good and it is fun to listen to Faces of Insanity , but we can not help dreaming of an album even more daring story to go further on the path of madness ...