01. Echoes Of Light
02. A Death Though No Loss
03. Shallow Nights
04. Selenophile
05. Gold / Dust
06. An Ode To The Conqueror
When Chapel Of Disease released …And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye back in 2018, they caught everyone by surprise. But when a band comes up with one of the most inspired death metal albums of the decade, and, in my opinion, in the history of the genre, expectations are high. And Echoes Of Light had very, very big boots to fill.
Chapel Of Disease took a bold and unexpected turn on their third album. While their previous efforts were rooted in old school death metal, that release found them incorporating prog rock, ‘70s hard rock, and gothic rock components, creating a unique and captivating sound that defied easy categorization, and a few people even characterized it as ‘death metal played by Mark Knopfler’. Unfortunately, in February 2023 the band announced via Laurent T. (vocals, lead guitars, bass, keys) the end of its existence as we knew it, due to the departure of the other two founding members (rhythm guitarist Cedric T. and drummer David D.). What we didn’t know at the time was that this announcement came just after the recording of Echoes Of Light had been concluded.
But enough with the history, let’s talk music. And, right off the bat, I can tell you that Echoes Of Light is branching out to even more diverse sounds compared to its predecessor. Chapel Of Disease smoothly welcome the listener to the new effort with two songs that could have been featured in the previous album. Both the title track and “A Death Though No Loss” feature the soaring melodies and the hooky riffs that made such a big impact on the metal crowd back in 2018. The 3-minute intro of the title track and its whole proggy structure are just too special to be analysed in any review. And right when you think that the band could not possibly top this, they hit you with a ‘song of the year’ contender; “A Death Through No Loss” opens in a blistering guitar-hero way, it has an almost hypnotic break toward its middle, before it gradually builds up and erupts in the form of a blazing “Freebird”-like solo. Divine stuff.
“Shallow Nights”, which follows, is the first song with clean vocals, showcasing the one and only flaw of Echoes Of Light. While the cleans are not terrible, they don’t sound like the gothic, Andrew Eldritch-like ones that were heard on “1.000 Different Paths”; they have a shoegaze-y feel and, quite honestly, they sound weak and flat. Anyway, this song features yet another splendid solo that goes on for one and a half minute, and it is pure eargasm.
In case you haven’t suspected it yet from what I’ve already said, the guitar work of this album is downright phenomenal; there is no other word for it. And I am not just talking about the insane shredding, because that is something that can be found relatively often, as there is a significantly large number of gifted guitar players in metal. But the emotional impact of the lead melodies on this album is unmistakable, and the addicting groove of the guitar riffs is just too marvellous for words. Take, for example, “Selenophile”, the catchiest cut of them all, which is a stupendous dark rocker, very reminiscent of later-era Tribulation. Or the post-rocking “Gold/Dust” and the bluesy/metalgaze-y “An Ode To The Conqueror”, whose guitar-driven intros and outros accentuate the striking imbalance in quality between the guitar playing and the clean vocal delivery. These last two songs leave a lot of hope for the musical future of the band, and the route Chapel Of Disease may be taking.
Being my most anticipated release of 2024, I have now had over thirty listens of Echoes Of Light, and it has been growing on me more and more with each listen. I find it to be a diverse, progressive, and beautiful album that took the non-death metal elements of its predecessor and further expanded them to the point that Chapel Of Disease have nothing much to do with death metal any more. It transcends music genres and, just like its stunning cover art suggests, it introduces rays of light through the darkness, while rocking the hell out of this darkness. In terms of personal preference, and at this point in time, I rate …And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye higher, solely because the clean vocals on Echoes Of Light leave much to be desired. Nevertheless, in terms of music, song-writing quality, instrumentation, and replayability, this is an album that should make most people’s year-end lists. It will make mine, for sure.
“Dust and flame! Dust and flame!
It is better to burn than to fade away
So let us dance between the lines of what’s been told
And break with the old!”
 | Written on 16.02.2024 by Only way to feel the noise is when it’s good and loud! |