Band: ASTARIUM
Country: Russia
Title: Fragments of Nightmares
Label: NitroAtmosfericum Records
Year: 2019
Style: Synthetic Black Metal
Review:
From the start you should know that the genre labeling for Astarium is completely mine and not the band's, so I don't know if the band or its followers will actually agree with it, but I'll use it anyway as to me it seems like the best characterization for the music we're offered by Astarium. This is a new full-length album, the seventh, and it seems SiN (the man behind Astarium) has made it a habit to release a new album every 2 years and in the meantime keep it active with EPs, demos, splits and compilations. 12 extremely short tunes, none of them over 2 minutes time, clocking a bit over 10 minutes of playing time, this is the new experiment by SiN; if the music on it is something one would expect, the duration of this new album is totally unforeseen. We're getting the same Symphonic Ambient kind of Black Metal (with a hint of Folk Metal at times, too) merging mid-tempo to (mostly) fast paced rhythms, with the trademark synthetic sound that make you think (and maybe it's even true after all...) it's all done on PC, except for the double vocals, of course. A short journey through fairytales and nightmares, something very different that you're used to, trust me, you'll either love it or hate it, but one thing is sure, it's original and keeps following the same path, so it's not like it was tried one time and was a mistake, this is the music Astarium does and wants to do.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 7.5/10