adg211288 Unholy Divination is an EP by US act I Am The Trireme, released in 2010. The band brands themselves as Symphonic Blackened Death Metal and they’ve really hit the nail on the head with the tagging as they blend both the epic symphonies of Symphonic Black Metal the brutality of Death Metal together into one package. But does it work for them?

Yes it does, but for me, it’s only to the point that I can hear the potential for them to be doing this style. Some parts of the sound work better than others, for example I think that in this small collection of songs the keyboard work Jon Sutherland really adds that additional edge to the music, and the vocals of Jay Briscoe are consistently on the level, and to be fair that as a group, I Am The Trireme display their competence as musicians, and they’ve produced a pretty solid EP here to show it.

The first track is an intro piece, which sounds pretty nice and works well to lead into the second track, From Beyond the Waking World, which sees the band switching from being rooted in black metal to death metal with ease, and this is a really good song, but the problem is that it’s just too short that I can’t help feeling that it’s over before it really goes anywhere, and I Am Many, which follows, starts really well, but then at about the two minute mark it seems to stall with a section which has two lots of vocals, one in the black metal style and one in the death metal style. The vocals aren’t the problem here, it’s just the guitar riff that backs it just doesn’t do anything for the song. Fortunately it’s redeemed by the ending which has some great and haunting piano sounds.

The fourth track, Closing the Portal of Umbral Nightmares is a much better offering. Here the band brings their influences together to create something which feels more right from beginning to end, and the same goes for the title track, which brings us to the end of the EP.

For me, sadly, it doesn’t go beyond being a solid slab of metal music. There are no real highlights among the tracks that really capture what the band hints at themselves being capable of, just a lot of good ideas mixed up. Unholy Divination is very listenable as it is, but I expect these guys have much better to offer in the future. What Unholy Divination shows us the most is that I Am The Trireme is a name to keep an eye on.