#Iapetus music the long road home 2017 full#

This ten minute track (the only short tracks on the album are interludes or, at best, instrumental “joining” tracks”) accurately portrays with its first part one whole piece of the entire album, furious, complicated and moving progressive death metal. Synths, atmospheric leads and an overall sense of grandeur circles around aggressive, harsh vocals and breakneck guitars, accompanied by rich drums that blastbeat in time. After an instrumental opener in the form of “…Of Hangman & Vertebrae”, composed of pleasing progressive metal starters, “Lachrymae Rerum” explodes with death metal sensibilities that would be familiar to fans of the latter works by Fallujah or Job For a Cowboy‘s Sun Eater. The basic formula that makes The Long Road Home works is great progressive death metal.

#Iapetus music the long road home 2017 full#

But for those willing to brave those extremes of wild, self indulgent and un-tethered self expression lies an album full of great musical moments. As mentioned, during this process it comes dangerously close to overreaching its boundaries and even faintly grazes the markings of overwrought artistry. It insists, even unto the brink of failure, to go where the vision of the two artists takes it rather than where convention would dictate it should go. Their 2017 self-release (which is, and always will be, completely free) The Long Road Home is an ambitious album which spans progressive death metal, neo-folk and progressive metal. Long Island based Iapetus provide us with a left of field lesson in what ambition bridled by talent can create. In a genre which predicates itself on the ambitious and the grandiose, how do you know where to draw the line?

This is, of course, also extremely relevant to music and progressive metal specifically. Entrapped in lofty goals of self expression, the mind of the artist often wanders far beyond its ability, landing in places of awkward staleness and unrealized dreams. There are few places where this is more relevant than art.

On the other, it has the corrosive ability to blind us to the strains we put on ourselves and the times when exceeding the limit results in nothing but a degradation of quality. On one hand, it’s absolutely crucial for its ability to drive us forward, to force us to reach beyond where our grasp easily wanders. Ambition is a double edged sword we have about 4000 years of literature and philosophy telling us so.