You know the drill: I will defend tech death to my dying breath, and I am willing to listen to any tech death recommendation at least once to see if it’s at least good. A while ago, I was told to listen to Orphalis, a band that was sold to me as “people who clearly know their tech death.” Curiosity piqued, I decided to pick up the promo for their fourth (!) full-length album, As The Ashes Settle, and see what the fuss was all about.

Spoiler alert: This band might beat out Obscura as my favorite tech death band.

As The Ashes Settle starts off immediately, with the title track and album opener “As The Ashes Settle” being a ferocious, aggressive song that bares its teeth early and shows no mercy. There’s an intent here, and it’s to melt your face right off. Even with its more syncopated and rhythmic aspects, the music is incredibly complex, its instrumentation being its outstanding feature. You can tell Orphalis are fantastic musicians, both as individuals and as a unit. Every note on this album is composed, orchestrated, and performed in a way that allows them to both follow a passage to its logical end and lets them have fun with it. From the guitar work on “Ritual of Conflagration” and “From Shadows Arisen” to the orchestral-lite flair of “An Effigy of Humanity” to the frenetic drumming of “Watch Them Descend,” everyone gets their moment to shine, showcasing just how technical As The Ashes Settle are. The more I listened to the record, the more I started to understand where the “brutal” descriptor fit. While the music does have melody in it – “The Wolves Draw Near” has a melodic bridge halfway through the song that gives it an atmospheric appeal – it’s also incredibly heavy. It feels like Orphalis is hitting you over the head with their amp while the music roars at full volume, and all you can do is hope that your ears still work after As The Ashes Settle finishes. It seems that Orphalis’s greatest strength is knowing their genre inside and out, as they able to incorporate different aspects of death metal into a cohesive sound that is undeniably theirs.

Speaking of cohesiveness, I want to briefly discuss the short interlude, “Moon Supremacy,” an unexpected electronica song that acts as the introduction to “From Shadows Arisen.” In an album that has been, up until this point, the most straight-forward depiction of tech death imaginable, having something so unexpected might knock listeners off balance. While “From Shadows Arisen” does resolve it musically, this song might be something that people skip on recurrent listens. Personally, I have no issue with electronica in my metal, so I saw “Moon Supremacy” as more of a future view into new ideas than a detriment and a crutch. It’s a great interlude, and it adds to As The Ashes Settle’s overall experience.

However, my main issue with As The Ashes Settle is its production. Normally, production in tech death doesn’t bother me, as I am too busy focusing on the technical mastery of the instrumentation. However, in this case, it seems Orphalis’s production is incredibly muddled to the point where it sounds like there are no differences in dynamics. I understand that I am supposed to listen to this as loudly as possible or on good headphones if playing this loudly is not an option, but those shouldn’t be my only options. The only reason for this type of production may be the musical intent, which is to be as brutal and as cacophonic as possible, befitting their genre descriptor. However, some dynamics – as well as a cleaner output – might be beneficial in terms of being able to listen to this album multiple times instead of having to put it down because of a headache.

Despite its inherent ferocity, As The Ashes Settle is an album that you will listen to again and again. I always found something new on a repeated listen, whether it was to follow a musical theme to its logical conclusion or to enjoy the more familiar tech death sound of “Staring Into Ruin.” It’s clear that Orphalis knows what they are doing, and I have no doubt that they will be known as one of the tech death greats in due time. I have no doubt that I will be seeing them in my EOY list soon enough.

— Hera

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As The Ashes Settle will be available August 25 on Transcending Obscurity Records. For more information on Orphalis, visit their Facebook page.