Published: November 2014

Epitimia stuffed all they could in this album - saxophone, Blackgaze tones, male and female vocals, storytelling, dynamics, Neo-Classical and ECM-type of Jazz sounds, even Electronic music. This enormous mix didn’t fit into one hour so the band decided to divide their experimentations into two CDs, titled “Delusion” and “Illusion”, and named this synthesis “(Un)reality”.

It’s almost impossible for a Black Metal fan not to find something close to his/her liking in this 110 minutes long release. Even if you don’t like the low quality Russian singing, there’ll be a part to enjoy in this album overflowing with variety. On the other hand, I can’t imagine a person who would truly like this entire massive chunk of music. It’s way too similar to Ne Obliviscaris - low quality, prolonged and just musically unattractive in general. For those who consider the latter band a miracle, “(Un)reality” might sound interesting. Personally, I think there’s a lack of Death Metal-like discipline and vocals, instrumental variety is on another level. It’s difficult to describe the general sound of the album, because each of the 18 songs is so different. There’s Trip-Hop and Jazz, then Atmospheric Black Metal, which is later suppressed and turned into Doom Metal. The only thing tying everything together is melancholic ambience.

To conclude, “(Un)reality” is a prolonged and over eclectic album, which didn’t introduce anything new to the scene. I would suggest this release to hard-core fans of Progressive Metal or those who like experimentations in Black Metal.