adg211288 The Fifth Season is the debut full-length album by Italian folk metal act Artaius. It was released in April 2013. Artaius previously released a demo in 2011 called MMXI, all songs from which have made it to The Fifth Season. Between the two releases Artaius has acquired a new lead vocalist, Sara Cucci and been signed to Moonlight Records.

The music on The Fifth Season is most instantly recognisable as folk metal, but dig a little deeper into Artaius’ sound and a band is found that goes one better than simply combining metal and folk instrumentation behind their beauty and the beast vocal approach. The sound is actually very progressive, especially with some of the keyboard work that Giovanni Grandi is doing here. The opening track Make the Iguana is a good example of how Artaius play off their folk and progressive elements. The progressive elements sound quite retro actually, very 70’s prog influenced. This actually gives Artaius quite the unique sound in the folk metal genre, so I’ve found The Fifth Season quite the exciting album to explore. Additionally a couple of the songs also have some aspects of power metal creeping in, especially during Wind of Revenge.

The Fifth Season is a competent debut album from Artaius, hopefully foreshadowing even stronger efforts to follow from the band. The one major issue that I have with it is that quite often it does feel that the growling vocals by Andrea La Torre aren’t really needed. Sara Cucci’s voice fits the progressive folk metal approach extremely well, so quite often I find myself wishing she also sang the growled lines. Ironically Make the Iguana is also a good example of what I mean here, since Cucci sings the majority of the song, so the growled lines of ‘Make the Iguana’ only really serve as a distraction. The growls work better when they’re given more time in the song, such as in Horizon, so it’s not a real major issue, but a bit of vocal reworking to the band’s strengths could have elevated the album up a bit for me, as the music is very much at its best when Cucci is singing so a clean vocal dominate track like Over the Edge strikes me as the very best on offer although I do have to also give a special mention to the excellent Prophecy.

The Fifth Season shows a lot of promise for Artaius, but there are few bugs that need ironing out before they reach the top of their game. Their writing is solid but not quite as remarkable as the elements that make up their sound. Allowing Sara Cucci full control of the vocals would also do them wonders in my opinion. Still, this is a very enjoyable debut despite a few issues and a great album tier rating is deserved.

81/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/artaius-the-fifth-season-t2965.html)