Band: FAUSTTOPHEL
Country: Russia
Title: No Liars among the Fallen
Label: Another Side Records
Year: 2019
Style: Melodic Black Death Metal
Review:
Four years ago, Fausttophel's second full-length album impressed me a lot, so I had high expectations from their newest material, a 10 tracks effort clocking a bit over 50 minutes of playing time. Fausttophel delivers a mix between Black and Death Metal as their music's backbone, but on top of that they add so much more that in the end it's impossible to pinpoint their music only to these two genres. The best thing about the new album (by the way all lyrics are in Russian and there's not much to discover for non-Russsian speaking listeners)is its diversity and surprise effect: the compositions are so wide and imaginative, so rich of different elements that it's impossible to remain passive during the audition. The rhythms are changing a lot, ranging from slow to fast paced, so all over the place, and there's always something surprising popping out when you expect it the least but all in all the band's music sounds curdled and well-thought, don't know how much time they spent on composing it but the end result suggests it was all carefully planned and structured. If you're into end '90's - beginning of the '00's technical and melodic (symphonic even) Black Death Metal and you're looking for a band to uplift your spirit this is the right album for you. Don't know how much interest they receive from Russian audience, but my feeling is this is definitely a band that deserves a lot more attention.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 9/10