Thursday 22 January 2015

Album Review: Persefone - Spiritual Migration

Persefone - Spiritual Migration
Date of Release:  03/29/2013
Record Label: ViciSolum Productions 
Genre: Progressive Melodic Death Metal

Reviewed by: Geoff McGraw
8 out of 10 horns

Track listings:  1. Flying Sea Dragons 2. Mind As Universe 3. The Great Reality 4. Zazen Meditation 5. The Majestic Of Gaia 6. Consciousness (pt. 1), Sitting In Silence 7. Consciousness (pt. 2), A Path To Enlightenment 8. Inner Fullness 9. Metta Meditation 10. Upward Explosion 11. Spiritual Migration 12. Returning to The Source 13. Outro

Persefone has been around since 2003 and already have several releases to their collective name including  "Truth Inside The Shades", "Core", and "Shin-Ken"....the last of which captured the progressive metal scene imagination.

Keeping in mind that writing a successful followup to what is considered by many to be a brilliant and intensly gripping album is at the very least difficult, Persefone manages to almost do exactly that. 

Not an album to be casually dropped in your player and run while you dodge about the house doing what needs to be done, or while building that model kit you've been meaning to get to, "Spiritual Migration" needs to be paid attention to. Sit down with your headphones and spend some time with the album, and be sure to be well rested it takes some energy to listen to. There is an amazing amount of technicality going on, as well as incredibly skilled arrangements and exotic instruments, paying close attention to an album this layered can be draining.

Clocking in at 6 minutes more than an hour, the albums length is also it's achilles heel. For an album to be more than an hour and be listened to in one sitting it absolutely must provide constant shifting textures, and while amazing, "Migration" tends to keep to a similar texture throughout the album delving into a technical death toward the latter half of the album. 

Still, "Spiritual Migration" is an amazing palette of sound and lyric and should be listened to as a whole. This is not an album with songs that are easily removed from the experience as a package. Audiophiles who are enamored of Meshuggah, or Mastodons "Crack the Skye" would be well advised to take heed and give this band a solid listen....although if you are that type you probably already know Persefone.

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