AUGURY — Concealed (review)

AUGURY — Concealed album cover Album · 2004 · Technical Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Concealed" is the debut full-length studio album by Canadian technical/progressive death metal act Augury. The album was released through the independent, Montreal based label Galy Records in September 2004.

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 primary focus on "Concealed". There is a lot of focus on atmosphere too. The tempos on the tracks vary from mid-paced to blasting. No matter which pace the band are playing in, this is the kind of album where you have to be the type who are able to appreciate constant double bass drums because that element is used a lot on "Concealed".

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 on the tracks too. Beautiful guitar solos and an emphasis on variation within the tracks keep "Concealed" exciting all the way through the 49:10 minutes long playing time. All tracks on the album are high quality compositions and after a couple of listens they are easy to tell apart, even though they are relatively complex and rather challenging. Towards the end of the album tracks like the ethnic Scandinavian flavoured and Viking metal influenced "The Lair of Purity" and the instrumental acoustic/electric "From Eden Enstranged..." mean 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 album and how good it is for the overall flow, but that´s probably a matter of aquired taste. To be honest I´m a bit biased.

The vocals on the album are predominantly deep growls, but there are also both clean male vocals and female ditto on some tracks. The latter mentioned vocal style is most prominant in the opening track "Beatus" where the female vocals are in operatic style, but also tracks like "In Russian Dolls Universes", "The Lair of Purity" and "...As Sea Devours Land" feature female vocals. The clean male vocals remind me of the singing style of Pasi Koskinen (Amorphis).

The sound production is clean, powerful and professional. Some might find it a bit too polished, but again that´s an aquired taste. "Concealed" is upon conclusion an excellent technical/progressive death metal album by Augury. Fans of the genre are adviced to check it out. A band that releases a high quality debut like "Concealed" deserves to be heard by as many people as possible. A 4.5 star (90%) rating is well deserved.
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