Published: March 31, 2014

Although the band was formed in 1996, what concerns us here is only the second full-length of this sextet from Sydney after posting earlier, in 1999, their first album, "Myriad", plus an ep called "Within the walls "he made ​​a bridge between the two. Lycanthia proposes What is a Gothic-Doom-Metal adhering strictly to employers that this style has created over the years. The group complies with all the features demanded by the genre from the aesthetics and poetry until, of course, the music itself. It is not difficult to see, since the beginning of the work, some of the influences that mark its destination, like the distinctive sound created by My Dying Bride from his early works, recognizable, inter alia, by the prominent use of violins; Also, some of the female vocal registers remind us those unique ringtones Anneke Van Giersbergen gave us masterpieces like "Mandylion". The combination of these angelic female voices to male voices is brutal, as expected, one of the hallmarks of this "Oligarchy" along with the heavier foray into the style of his contemporaries Draconian places. Obviously entered and in 2014, we can not say that what is offered Lycanthia original bet in extreme music. This sub-genre exploded with incredible force and with an overwhelming flood of ideas and melodies in the early nineties and has since experienced a boom that led, as happens with all musical phenomena implode thus to saturation of a sound that was exploited to the full. This is, in my view, the biggest drag that pulls the work of Australians. I believe that addressing a style so visited and plundered as this requires to be done from a perspective that can bring something new and unique to it and think Lycanthia were unable or unwilling to do so, sticking to create a generic disk freckle be a little brave. For certainly old ear, like mine, certain formulas, as mentioned contrast between beauty and brutality reflected in the voices, which are subject to wear in unforgiving time to show, unless they are able to give a twist his own essence, but keeping changing their appearance. For example, I miss more melodic variety that makes the music is not lost in an ocean too much like himself, or worse, too much like others. This sameness, issues are finally cornered in a narrow melodic fence that can reach plunge them into indifference. That said, over the almost fifty-five minutes long the album we can enjoy moments of great inspiration to rise above the plain that prevails in many other times and pointing to the way that can make Lycanthia a group that escape correction towards greater excellence and originality. So I think we are facing a disk contented to hardcore fans of the Gothic-Doom Metal-orthodox, but you can leave a little cold to seek certain progression or regeneration thereof.