siLLy puPPy Due to his involvement with his bands Monstrosity, Vile and Abraxas, Mike Hrubovcak was forced to put his AZURE EMOTE project on hold but in 2011 found the time to bring his ambitions back to life as the inner avant-garde was beckoning to be unleashed. As with “Chronicles Of An Aging Mammal,” the second release THE GRAVITY OF IMPERMANENCE contains an eclectic posse comitatus of contributions in this case by members of Death, Fear Factory, Tristania, Sins Of Thy Beloved, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, Hate Eternal, Yakuza, Visions Of Atlantis as well as by Hrubovcak’s other bands. So once again we get a larger than life genre bending mashup of crazy misanthropic infused weirdness.

THE GRAVITY OF IMPERMANENCE embodies a whole new sound and a major shift away from the aggressive debut. While death metal aggression is still in plentiful supply, this album has a slicker and more refined overall sound with a less frantic feel. The most striking of the new sound comes from the addition of violins which add a gypsy flair and can bring bands like Unexpect or Sleepytime Gorilla Museum to mind. The addition of the saxophone adds a hitherto unheard jazzy touch to the mix bringing bands like Shining from Norway or Ephel Duath at times to mind. Most of all the most drastic change is in the addition of the operatic vocals with a verified diva reminding of Fleshgod Apocalypse. Add an occasional harmonica, electronic programming and sampling and we have a veritable even stranger beast than the first album!

Once again the main focus is on the melodic developments and with the addition of the violins and operatic vocals we get an overall slowed down effect that has easier to digest song structures. While the debut was in-yer-face avant-garde to the max, GRAVITY is more elegant in its refined approach of the parade of sounds that find their proper place and bring the right mood inducing timbres to fruition. Fear not metal heads, there are still plenty of killer death metal riffs, growly vocals, sizzling guitar solos and brutal metal to bang yer head to. Just check out “Conduit To Atrophy” and hear all these elements gnaw off their leash and rock the bleepin’ house.

It seems the overall consensus is that this is the more mature album of the two and that it has found a more loyal audience but i personally wouldn’t call it better or worse than the debut, simply different. I find both albums are quite brilliant in their own right and the differences are what make AZURE EMOTE proving itself to be a wellspring of creative energy that allows a new assemblage of musicians to synergize their various talents into an imaginative cauldron of productivity. As with the debut the production is also noteworthy as it must be ridiculously difficult to mix all these elements together but the hour long album passes by with nary a glitch and an impressive array of parading elements that seamlessly wends and winds through the lands of opera, gypsy folk, death metal and beyond without ever resorting to sounding like any of the influences that were the inspiration. This second album is just as much a keeper as the first. Anxiously awaiting a follow up.

J-Man Azure Emote is one of the many bands I stumbled upon by accident while browsing through the budget metal section of my local record store - the cover artwork for their 2007 debut album, Chronicles of an Aging Mammal, immediately grabbed my attention, so I picked it up and enjoyed it for quite some time afterwords. Blown away by the Philadelphia outfit's unique and experimental approach to death metal, I was later disappointed to find out that the project had been put on hold shortly after the release of its debut; fast forward almost six years, and Azure Emote has finally released their sophomore album, The Gravity of Impermanence. Set to drop on April 3, 2013 for Selfmadegod Records, The Gravity of Impermanence is another tremendous release from this unjustly obscure act - no fan of avant garde death metal should miss out on this one!

Musically, The Gravity of Impermanence has a firm foot in death metal territory for sure, but still deviates from the norm quite a bit. Largely due to the spacey keyboard tones, the entire album has a futuristic and dystopian atmosphere that is accentuated even further by Azure Emote's frequent deviations into progressive and avant-garde territory. Saxophone and violin soloing, melodic synthesizer lines, and choral vocals are not uncommon on The Gravity of Impermanence, and while this gives the album a quirky and unusual edge, it never sounds as off the wall as other extreme avant-metal outfits like Unexpect or Sigh. Azure Emote does a tremendous job blending death metal, classical music, progressive metal, and avant-garde into a coherent and surprisingly melodic sound; as jarring and twisted as some of the arrangements are, The Gravity of Impermanence has a very melodic foundation that lends itself to a level of memorability not usually seen in this genre.

While its hour long playing time will undoubtedly challenge most listeners at first, tremendous compositions like "Conduit of Atrophy", "Annunaki Illuminati", and "Puppet Deities" (to name just a few) are enough to make The Gravity of Impermanence well worth a purchase. Azure Emote does a great job seamlessly blending technical death metal, avant-metal, melodic death metal, and progressive metal together on this release, and its stellar production values make it perhaps even more worthwhile than their debut. I can only hope that The Gravity of Impermanence reaches a wide audience upon its release, as it is bound to impress any fan of adventurous and forward-thinking death metal - strongly recommended!