Septaria – Astar
Release Date: 15th November 2024
Label: Klonosphere Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Progressive Metal, Post-Metal.
FFO: Gojira, Mastodon, Slowdive, Russian Circles.
Review By: Rick Farley
The beautiful ugliness of contrast, equal parts dreamy soundscapes mixed with harsh tension. Septaria, a young band from the south of France that encapsulates this immersive sound, brings the swaggering heaviness of Gojira and infuses it with ethereal post-metal waves. Exploding layers and soft textures form a melodic progressive dive into metals darker conscience. The band’s debut album Astar set for release on Klonosphere Records November 15th, 2024, is filled with not only aggression but also with spacey atmosphere.
I must admit my initial thought when I started this album was this band is clearly a clone of that other French band, we all know. The entirety of the first track Moment Présent and the second track Centaure while having grimier vibes here and there is essentially a combination of modern Gojira and inherently progressive undertones. Now mind you, both of these tracks are colossal in heaviness and maintain that unique riff catchiness that is noticeably clear, there are other elements that drift towards their sound being a little more complex. The Gojira influence is most definitely present throughout the album, but by the time I got to the end of Astar I realized I unfairly pegged them much too quickly. While not everything works on this record, it’s still quite unique in its own right.
Track three Physché is the one that stuck with me enough to realize a different path had been taken. A clean guitar passage with harmonic melodies overtop leads to a distorted, crunchy riff that lingers for only a brief moment before returning to the calm passage. The vocals are cleanly sung with a cadence that reminiscent of an alternative, almost grunge like delivery. It’s met with harsh growled vocals, setting off the juxtaposition between peaceful and raging. The balance between the two linger throughout the track as it increases its tension. By the four-minute mark we are well into, full on heavy chunky riffs that repeat till the end of the track adding a satisfying build to release of aggression.
Musically, things from there get deeper and deeper into a world of mysticism and spacey vibes. Essentially becoming more progressive the further you go into the record. Track four, Abyss, brings a four-minute instrumental that personally for me doesn’t make sense in the grand scheme of things. It stops the momentum of the first three songs dead in its tracks. That’s part of my complaint I have with this record, is after track three the album has a tough time focusing. It’s not sure exactly what it wants to be. The album clocks in at, give or take 68 minutes. With a solid twenty minutes of just instrumental stuff that could be removed, making this a much easier album to digest. Astar is chock-full of wow moments and killer riffs that enhance the dreamlike atmosphere they’re trying to build, but it’s just too much too often. Vocally, the album is all over the place as well. Gutturals, cleans, raspy shouts, mixed with soft chants and monotone spoken word that all work against each another more often than not. I want to love this album; the musicianship is incredible, and the songwriting chops are there, but I digress. Maybe with some self-editing and clearer direction on album number two, Septaria can definitely become a band to reckon with.
(3 / 5)
