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Album Reviews : The Autumn League – Concept of Irony

By on August 1, 2014

The Autumn League hails from Sydney and they are playing a mix of death and black metal. The vocals remind me a bit of Mikael Åkerfeldt himself. Think Opeth and Bloodbath chucked into a blender and you’re pretty close to The Autumn League sound. There are the occasional surprise thrown into the mix, like in the opening track The Hour Is At Hand, where some clever keyboard work out of nowhere send me right back to the 80s.

I find The Autumn League to be an interesting band. They have most definitely some interesting stuff going on, even though many of the songs might sound very similar to begin with, there are the small things that the band do to ensure that it doesn’t become boring. Whenever they add keyboards to the equation it gets really interesting, sadly it’s not often enough, and as a result the songs rarely kicks into the highest gear. Don’t get me wrong, the musicianship is outstanding and the production is really good, but as soon as the keyboards are added, it feels like the songs are complete for a moment or two. It is something I would like to hear more of.

I can’t help but thinking that there might be one or two songs too many on this album. The Hour Is At Hand is an amazing song and some of the following songs are also very interesting but I feel that the quality fades gradually after Nightingale, which is track number 10.

The Autumn League are fantastic musicians with some very good metal songs and a lot of the stuff, like the “ambience” they’ve got going in most songs is very interesting. It is a fairly long record, clocking in at one hour and one minute, and the band manages to keep it interesting until the very end.

Being the band’s first album I must say I am pretty impressed. Everything from the production to the artwork feels very professional and I’m already looking forward to what they might come up with in the future. If you are a fan of black/death metal and possibly even prog metal you should lend The Autumn League your ear. You should definitely check out the opening track The Hour Is At Hand and also We The Redeemed and The Nightingale.

Band: The Autumn League
Album: Concept of Irony
Year: 2014
Genre: Atmospheric black/death metal
Label: Independent
Origin: Sydney, NSW

Track list:
1. The Hour Is At Hand
2. A Flame Within
3. Hope & Despair
4. Lament
5. We The Redeemed
6. Change
7. State of the Soul
8. The End of Entimy
9. Homeward
10. Nightingale
11. Weightlessness
12. These Remain
13. Vow
14. Epilogue
15. The View From Here

About

Martin is an aspiring music photographer/videographer. He is originally from the southern parts of Sweden and now he's living in Sydney, Australia. Thanks to his older sister, he got into Rammstein at the age of 9, and since then he's been into all types of metal/rock. He loves to combine photography and music, but also filming concerts and produce live material. Follow him on Twitter and check out his website.