The first time I listened to a project of Alice Simard, I was blown away by how tight and technical a solo project could be. I gave the album, "Like Crushed Violets and Linen," a solid 7/10, signaling to the readers a flawed but satisfying listen. Today, I return to Alice, this time accompanied by Eetu Hernesmaa. Vitrified Entity is the duo's name, and "Imum" is the third showcase of the duo's game. What exactly is their game? A relentless masocore of technical wizardry and neoclassical shenanigans that'll make any hardcore gamer ragequit. I'll eliminate the video game references for now, but they'll revive soon...

To get the video game talk out of the way, the closing track is a rearrangement of the soundtrack of the 1989 NES game, "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse," titled "Dracula's Battle." While fun to listen to, it adds nothing to an album that already suffers from incohesiveness. "Imum" lacks song-to-song identity, which means if you listened to track one, "Reigne entomique," you've essentially listened to the entire album, excluding the haphazard Nintendo dénouement. Each composition lasts no more than four-something minutes, and each riff could be a sardine for how tightly they're packed. All songs include at least two or three solos, and while satisfyingly complicated, after the fifth one, I'm not as impressed. Alice tackles two different guitars, constantly fluctuating her focus between smooth melodicism and over-the-top brutality. Eetu is a mastermind behind the fretless bass. Whether it's a jazzy passage on the title track or a fun little swing segment on "Le vaste bois intersideral," the bass is always welcomingly present. Don't mind me-I foam at the mouth when bands don't mix their bass into oblivion.

Circling back to my thoughts on the LP's cohesiveness, I'm still confident that if someone were to play me a song and give me three options to choose from, I could not tell you which one it was. I'd hate to say I'm not impressed by such a level of musicianship, but after a while, it's quite redundant. Yes, those are blast beats. Yes, they are fast. Yes, that guitar solo took a minute and a half. I get it! Vitrified Entity throws in some unexpected elements like a string break in "Hemophagie" and piano solos in the title track to break up the monotony, but it isn't enough to offset my boredom. Looking past the musical prowess of Vitrified Entity, "Imum" is just another shredfest showcase.

There are also lyrics, if that makes any sense. Even though the album is purely instrumental, the "lyrics" tell a story about... something to do with the white fox on the cover.