The New Athens Ethos

It’s common sense you can’t judge anyone from a first glance, nor can you judge a band at first listen. Of course this doesn’t apply to purposely commercial acts a la Within Temptation in which case it’s immediately obvious they won’t ever release anything worthwhile; but when it comes to Aesma Daeva they’re unique enough to entertain a small hope something good may some day come out of it. The Eros of Frigid Beauty had proved to be a terrible record, but at least it was terrible in its own specific way, indeed I’m not ashamed to admit it kept me curious enough to check another of their works next, the one we’re talking about now as you must have understood.

Granted, The New Athens Ethos is bad... but even more than its predecessor it serves to reinforce the impression something good may some day come out of it. Of course artists who keep on appearing promising their entire life without ever confirming it aren’t uncommon. Besides, releasing anything better than Eros... wasn’t an insurmountable challenge. Eventually, a rough half of the album is still completely disposable, and the guys should understand the day they’ll have a slight chance of sounding pleasant will be the day they’ll drop all these let’s say avant-garde elements which are once again a plague here. The Dawn of New Athens for instance, in spite of bits of electric guitar here and there, consists in 17 minutes of pure AMBIENT. I’ve been told people exist who actually enjoy this kind of pseudo-intellectual masturbation. First, I’m certainly not one of them. Second, I’ve always failed to see anything intellectual in endlessly chaining random keyboard bits together. Third and more important it has nothing to do on a supposedly metal album, though at this point I’m wondering to which extent Aesma Daeva consider themselves as a metal band.

This was naturally the most extreme example, but still this isn’t the only one. This album is literally filled with minimalist muffled down acoustic/ambient interludes which increase its length without adding anything of genuine value: let’s enumerate My Lost Melody, Aviva I, A Gathering of Shades, Sirens and even the closing The Garden I Long For which even if it can be categorized as a genuine song is little more than a repetitive acoustic instrumental. And once the cleansing is done all that remains are five tracks – over eleven.

Now how all this is still painful, laboured and pedestrian. Let’s ignore the obnoxious overmixed drums, as the songwriting is so flawed the sound quality becomes anecdotal. You know, it doesn’t begin that bad, with The Origin of the Muse and its half-thrashy main riff reminding of typical Symphony X. That the track still takes one minute and a half of simplistic acoustic bits before truly beginning is a minor issue compared to the pleasant surprise of discovering a genuine METAL song. Of course it’s overall too lengthy, of course the slower and more orchestral second part with its backing brass ensemble seems to come out of nowhere in absence of any connection with the first, of course the ending is botched, quickly dealt with in a mere couple of bars, but it’s nonetheless a both solid and original track. Later Artemis, though quite repetitive, conveys a darker, ominous vibe with its serpentine, obsessive melody in addition of finally enabling the soprano to be appreciated to her true value (indeed a self-dubbed operatic band featuring overall so few sung parts has to be another mystery).

The three remaining songs are perfect sleeping pills though... The Sons of Heaven isn’t only boring, it also had to boast a rather annoying high-pitched chorus. Atma may show some Mid-Eastern flavour but it’s above all the epitome of the flat song, the one seeming to never neither begin nor end. Coming to I Have Sailed With Odysseus... alright after 2800 years we finally know the reason for Ulysses’ final wreckage; it’s wasn’t because of Poseidon’s wrath, it was because he listened to Aesma Daeva. Apart from this little bit of mythological significance it’s another totally insignificant slow take, again mostly acoustic and overall barely metal.

Still there’s no doubt left, this is a HUGE improvement over The Eros of Frigid Beauty. Aesma Daeva is likely to be an interesting band with several interesting ideas, which up to its third album nonetheless seems to have failed in most of what it tried to achieve. At least this time it smells like we’re going somewhere; Hell, it probably makes the listener curious enough to check the fourth opus.

Highlights: The Origin of the Muse, Artemis

When one thinks of gothic metal, America is not the first thing that comes to mind. It's probably the last. The American music industry is based on money only, not art. And thats exactly what the problem is. When truly great bands, such as Aesma Daeva appear, they are overlooked and pushed way underground. Ok, now on to the actual review. I'm sorry, I had to rant.

This is probably my favorite Aesma Daeva album. Its probably one of my favorite albums period. But that doesn't mean that this album is without flaws. The first song, The Origin of the Muse, is an absolutely amazing song. The minute and a half long intro to this song may fool some. It is although a hint of what is to come, but I'll explain that later. Anyways, the intro makes you think that this will be some ho hum ambient song, in the vein of the latter half of the debut(not that I didn't like those songs, but they are quite mellow). Then all of a sudden you get this blast of sound. The song only picks up from there. Within the 8 minutes of this song, there are so many changes. The riffs change, the tempos change, the vocal style changes. Going from a soft ambient intro, to frantic riffing and double bass drumming, to doom with horns. The Origin of the Muse is anything but boring. The downfall is that you are expecting an hour long album of this awesome metal portrayed in the first song. That is where you are wrong.

Next up you have one of the many soft instrumentals laced throughout the album. Track 3, The Sons of Heaven, is an awesome doomy track. Again we have another ambient instrumental. By this point, you are only wondering how many more of these until another metal song. Atma is one of the rocking tracks. It is a quite good song, as are all the other actual songs. Now brace yourself. Once again you have an instrumental. An instrumental lasting around 7 minutes if you round up. And then another instrumental, then another. 8 songs have just passed and only 3 of them have even been with vocals. And is it just me or does Sirens sound way similar to Aviva I? Finally we are saved by the next song. It is one of the best from the album, and probably the band. And then there is yet another instrumental. The last song starts off leaving you the impression that there is, yet again another instrumental. About 2 and a half minutes into the song, it picks up with some pleasant guitar and vocals. The song only progresses from there to become a calm doomy type of song.

I make this album sound like it is way worse than it really is, or deserves. It's just that when you get a taste of the more metal side of Aesma Daeva, thats all you really want to hear. Yeah the instrumentals are nice, but there is just too many of them, and that is my only complaint. If it were not for the instrumentals, I would have probably given this album a 100%. The little ambient songs are most likely there to set the greek themed mood, and that they do. So I guess they serve their purpose. But still, so many are not necessary. My advice is to listen to this when you want to relax, that is when it would be best enjoyed.

With about 15 minutes of these soft abstract songs, the majority of the album, the other 34 minutes believe it or not are still, for the most part, pretty rocking. No death metal or speed metal here, but the songs still rock. And besides, the instrumentals are short, with the exception of 2 of them, and beautiful. So take this beautifully crafted album for what it is and enjoy it!