As a band, Be’lakor is a bit of an enigma. Over the past decade, the Melbourne quintet has seemingly followed an interesting pattern of ascending from the shadows, releasing new material, briefly touring in support of that material, and then withdrawing into the shadows until their next release. Unlike most of their peers, little is seen or heard from the band during these periods of quietness. It’s an interesting business model for the band, but one that has helped create a mystique around each release. Following their largely successful run after well-received 2016 release Vessels, the band withdrew once again and for a time seemed dormant. This was not to be the case though as five years on from that release the band return once again to release a new album with Coherence.
Picking up where Vessels left off, Be’lakor plunges down the progressive death metal path with opening track Locus. This number spends its first 90 seconds slowly building with a discordant harmony before ushering in a barrelling riff that sets a fiercely quick tone for this track. Across its near eleven-minute duration this song goes through several pauses, silences, and alternating time signatures which help develop it into a track that finishes starkly different from the way it began, with a spoken word passage breaking into a tremolo riff conclusion being the exact opposite of the harmonious opening 90 seconds. It’s a momentous opus to begin the album, but one which really sets expectations for what is to come over the course of these eight tracks.
The second track The Dispersion is a purely instrumental affair, with a dark yet soaring vibe to it. This isn’t the only instrumental on the album with the band opting to nearly alternate between instrumental and non-instrumental tracks over the total album. Normally, this can seem pretty cliché, but the band makes it work to great effect with these instrumentals offering ambient reprieves from the bellowing vocals of George Kosmos.
The third track Foothold is an ominous-sounding but fast-paced affair, with a tremendously strong bass section carried by the drums and bass guitar. This track has more of an ethereal feel to it than the others on the album but carries some really strong instrumentation throughout. The fourth track Valence leans heavily in on the bass but is surprisingly more upbeat than its predecessors. Being another lengthy song, this track goes through a similar sort of transformation to the opener but ends so powerfully with an earworm guitar harmony carried over some fierce powerful double kicks. This particular section is definitely one of the standouts on the album.
The second instrumental Sweep of Days follows and has a really strong acoustic bridge to it and some very strong harmonies. The interplay between the instruments on this one gives this track a very strong progressive and melodic vibe which makes it the perfect segue way to already released single Hidden Window. This track feels more heavily rooted in traditional melodic death metal, but still contains many progressive metal undertones which ultimately reward another transformative track.
The third instrumental Indelible has a much stronger melody throughout compared to the other instruments, and it slowly builds anticipation towards the closing track Much More Was Lost. As a closing track, Much More Was Lost feels like it is the song the band has been working towards for their entire career. The 12-minute-long masterpiece serves as a perfect postmark for the album and encompasses all of the techniques employed by the band to this point. It closes with a high-soaring melody that swells slowly over its latter half which brings the album to a perfect close.
Be’lakor has always taken a balanced approach to their songwriting. There are very few occasions throughout their back catalog where the band has elevated a particular instrument above the others so as to give it its own spotlight. This tradition is very much continued on Coherence with each instrument forming a harmonious bond to the other, sacrificing their own stand-out moments in favor of a strong collective output. Even Kosmos’ vocals rest nicely in the mix, which largely works well, but can be a bit of a detractor at some of the quieter spoken sections where the lyrics get a bit lost. It’s not a deal-breaker but is something that becomes apparent a few times on this album.
In terms of song composition, it’s difficult to say that Be’lakor aren’t now proficient masters at marrying different styles together. Hidden amidst their progressive death metal exterior, Coherence has hints of groove, classic melodic death metal, and hints of black metal that all form an amalgam of sounds that uniquely shape these songs. When you combine all of these elements with the band’s penchant for changing time signatures, you are left with songs that spiral from peacefully ambient to brutally fierce over the course of their duration, feeling substantially different between their beginning and endings.
With a runtime almost an hour-long, this album requires the dedication of its listener. These eight tracks have been meticulously cultivated to a very fine degree, which probably explains the large gap between this album and their last release. These aren’t short songs either, with the opening and closing tracks being some of the longest of the band’s career, and if you were to remove the instrumentals from the album, the shortest tracks run-time is still over seven minutes long. There is a clear playthrough that has been mapped in song structuring on the album, and while it is possible to take these tracks and enjoy them as standalone pieces, there is an undeniable joy reached in hearing the intertwining linkage across them.
The album is not without its flaws though with the mix at times not having that same polish as its predecessor and feeling hollow in places. This isn’t likely to detract from the listening experience for many but was something that became apparent, particularly after revisiting Vessels which involved the same mixing personnel.
With that being said, Coherence remains true to form for Be’lakor. Coherence is an enjoyable ride from start to finish, with enough variance on its tracks to welcome newcomers to the band while still maintaining subtle intricacies that will provide new experiences on subsequent playthroughs for the more avid listener. Be’lakor has continued to climb from strength to strength with this album, and it will be interesting to see what comes next for the band.
1 comment
Sounds very promising. I can’t wait to hear it.
By the way the singer is called George Kosmas not Kosmos.