(Metal Blade Records)
Total Playing Time: 56:18

Fifth studio album for the Americans ALLEGAEON, a band considered to be of high standards in the technical Death Metal genre of our times. After “Proponent For Sentience” published in 2016, their new album entitled “Apoptosis” is labeled by Metal Blade Records. The term “Apoptosis” is a Greek word, a biological term referring to programmed cell death.

“Apoptosis” is in fact a set of excellent songs, of the same level as the previous work of the band. The album is therefore a collection of professionally played technical death metal songs, even though the band has opened its horizons towards new musical directions: there are progressive elements and many melodic parts and this makes the songs more interesting. Moreover, their high speed of the rhythm section, gives greater dynamics to the songs, while the guitars are slower than in the previous works, bringing space to more melodic moments.

As for the vocal part, there is a nice contrast between the Death screams and the clean sections. The initial piece “Parthenogenesis”, along with “Metaphobia” and “Extremophiles (B)” are among the songs closest to the original style of ALLEGAEON. The second part of the album contains compositions that tend more to progressive mode, such as the beautiful “Tsunami And Submergence” or “Stellar Tidal Disruption”. A surprise collaboration with the classical guitarist Christina Sandsengen in “Colors Of The Currents”, leads to the end of the album with the epic title track.

“Apoptosis” is therefore a solid album that will surely not disappoint fans of the genre. The group’s attempt to add new elements in their music is interesting, coming out of the usual patterns of technical Death Metal. On the other hand, there are some songs that maybe last a little longer than necessary…

7,5/10

Fanouris Exintavelonis