Conor Fynes 'Fragmentary Evidence' - Augury (8/10)

If there is any place one could go to in Canada for good metal, it would be Quebec. Sure, there are good bands to be found in every province of this vast nation, but Quebec seems to have the greatest tendency to churn out some of North America's greatest metal outfits, with a particular focus on death metal. Augury is a band that is coming out of a well-established scene for all things brutal and heavy, and their second album 'Fragmentary Evidence' takes heir epic take on technical death metal and brings it to a much wider audience. featuring cameos from a number of Quebec's most noteworthy metallers, 'Fragmentary Evidence' may not have the pleasing shock of 'Concealed', but their penchant for quality leaves on with this one, and with this, they plant themselves as one of North America's most promising young death metal acts.

Like 'Concealed', there is quite a bit of variety on 'Fragmentary Evidence', quite a bit more than what one may usually expect from a death metal record. The variety of riffs can leap from brutally technical death riffs, to more melodic licks, jazzy bits and a few proggy tapping sections. Not a most original innovation in progressive death metal to be sure, but Augury makes these aspects work with greater dynamic and excitement than most. On a personal note, I find myself typically amazed by the musical skills and abilities of tech death musicians, but find the music itself to be lacking. Augury is an exception to this rule, always throwing new things at the listener, right to the final track. The heavy sections here don't have the distinctiveness to keep from sounding the same, but they are far from monotonous, as the band is constantly changing up their pace, energy, and sound.

Included here are the vocal presences of singers from such bands as Cryptopsy and uneXpect, both bands that have also impressed me greatly in the past. Sadly- and especially in the case of the uneXpect vocal contribution- the appearance feels more like a gimmicky cameo than anything, jumping in for a few seconds, hinting at the sound of their origin bands, then disappearing for the rest of it. The main vocals here are a little more varied than your typical death metal dose, although they are not nearly as varied as they were on 'Concealed'. The vocals tend to lead the band into whatever specific style they are doing; there's even a song here where it sounds like vocalist Patrick Loisel is taking Augury on a pirate metal adventure through high seas. That being said, the real highlight here is what Augury can do with the lighter, mellow moments of the album; specifically the variety of different things they do with it.

'Concealed' will be a tough album for Augury to beat, but 'Fragmentary Evidence' certainly does not disappoint; we have here a very well-produced and exceptionally performed progressive death metal album, with plenty of little tricks up its sleeve to distinguish it from the legions of other bands.

UMUR Fragmentary Evidence is the 2nd full-length studio album by Canadian progressive death metal act Augury. While the band´s debut full-length studio album Concealed (2004) was a self-released affair, this time Augury have signed with Nuclear Blast Records, which should give Fragmentary Evidence a much better exposure than the almost unknown debut.

The music on the album continues the progressive and technical death metal style of the debut. Seen from a technical point of view this album is very impressive. Blasting drums, fast shredding, jazzy parts and skillful soloing are just some of the assets of this album. The vocals vary between deep growls ( mostly) and occasional clean singing. The clean singing reminds me of how Amorphis sounds. I´ve seen other reviews mention viking metal vocals, so maybe that´s a valid comparison too. There are a bunch of guest vocalists on the album, who also contribute to make that side of the music diverse. Some of the guest vocalists are Sven de Caluwé from Aborted and Syriak and Leilindel from Unexpect. The songs are high quality progressive/ technical death metal compositions. Augury understand how to vary their music to keep it entertaining and intriguing throughout the album´s playing time.

The production is modern, clean and powerful. Perfect for this kind of music albeit a bit too polished for my taste.

I´ve given Fragmentary Evidence a lot of spins and while there is no doubt that this is a 3.5 - 4 star release in my book, I can´t help thinking that I enjoyed the debut a bit more. Maybe in the end the album is a bit too polished for my taste. A comparison could be Cosmogenesis (2009) by Obscura, which I also think is a great album, but maybe a bit too polished too. Of course there should be no doubt in the mind of fans of the genre. This is one of those albums you should have in your collection.

UMUR Concealed is the debut full-length studio album by Canadian progressive death metal act Augury. The album was released on an independent, Montreal based label called Galy Records. This unfortunately means that Concealed has been an import artifact for us Europeans and this is my guess why I haven´t heard about Augury before recently. Augury is now signed to Nuclear Blast which should give them a much better distribution and hopefully also a much better exposure.

The music on Concealed is at it´s core brutal death metal, but there are so many other things going on, that a description like that doesn´t do the music justice at all. There´s a high level of technical playing on the album but I wouldn´t say that technical playing is THE focus on Concealed. There is a lot of focus on atmosphere as well. The tempi on the songs vary from mid-paced to blasting and this is the kind of album where you have to be the type who enjoys double bass drums because that element is used extensively on the album.

In addition to the death metal elements on the album there are also elements from progressive metal on Concealed. While the death metal parts are certainly brutal there are lots of melodic playing in the songs too. Beautiful guitar soloing and an emphasis on variation in the songs keeps this album exciting all the way through the 49:10 minute long playing time. All songs on the album are on a high quality level and after a couple of listens they are easy to tell apart. Towards the end of the album songs like the ethnic Scandinavian flavoured and Viking metal influenced The Lair of Purity and the instrumental acoustic/ electric From Eden Enstranged... means that the variation level increases even more. It´s up for discussion how well the former fits with the atmosphere of the rest of the songs on the album but that´s a matter of taste. I´m a bit biased to be honest.

The vocals on the album are pre-dominantly deep growls, but there are also both clean male vocals and female ditto in some songs. The latter is most prominant in the opening track Beatus where the female vocals are in operatic style, but also songs such as In Russian Dolls Universes, The Lair of Purity and ...As Sea Devours Land, have female vocals. The clean male vocals remind me of Pasi Koskinen ( Amorphis).

The production is clean, powerful and professional. It´s definitely not obvious that this is a small label release. Some might find it a bit too polished, but again that´s an aquired taste.

Concealed is an excellent progressive death metal album by Augury. Fans of the genre are adviced to check it out. I know I was surprised by the high quality music on the album as I hadn´t heard about the band before. A band that releases a debut like Concealed deserves to be heard by as many people as possible. I really hope that their signing with Nuclear Blast will give them the well deserved recognision they certainly have earned themselves with this debut album. A 4.5 star rating is well deserved.