The Great Herald of Misery

Heptaedium

HEPTAEDIUM are a one-man project of Florent Lambert, who released 3 LPs and 1 EP […]
By Erik Akos
June 10, 2018
Heptaedium - The Great Herald of Misery album cover

HEPTAEDIUM are a one-man project of Florent Lambert, who released 3 LPs and 1 EP with this project. However, for this record, he invited his best friend Mickaël Ratinaud to do vocals, both clean and harsh. And I've gotta say, that was a very smart decision, because the vocals - even though not flawless - are easily the best thing about this effort. The screams usually follow the same djenty rhythmic style of the drums and guitars (which I'll talk about later) and succeed in lending them more power, while the clean vocals are more focused on eeriness and chills. I myself preferred the cleans, even though there were a lot less of them.

As for the music, it's really djenty, but not that fast, mostly somewhere in between the mid and fast tempo range. Even though I like the production and mixing (Fucking around with the volume I thought was a great idea), I don't think the writing is quite there yet. I don't know if it was anything new for him, but the keyboards were a solid addition that, in my opinion, could have had a more significant role in the compositions, because the basic metal instrumentals are kind of stale, but due to the guitar tones and overall sound design, mix pretty well with the electronic synth lines.

The album is really short, capping at 26 minutes and mostly having songs in the 2-4 minute range, except for the title track, which concludes the LP, and has an entire song of buildup for it ("Trapped in a Gravitational Abyss"), which is miles better than the 8 minutes of track no. 7, because - unlike its intro of 3:40 - it lacks anything that would make it stand out int he album's context, so there was really no point in making it so long, especially if you're going to end it at 5:45 and just let the sound degrade for 2 and a half minutes. Overall, a bit uninspired writing, but amazing production and electronic elements. I would gladly listen to a proggy dark synthwave/cold wave) album from Lambert.

6 / 10

Had Potential

Songwriting

5

Musicianship

6

Memorability

6

Production

9
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"The Great Herald of Misery" Track-listing:

1. Now
2. Watch Me Break the Neck of the Hypocrites
3. Spill Torrents of Carcass on The Ground and Piss on Them
4. Till the Seventh Snake Eat their Empty Shell
5. I'm a Symmetric Mass of Hate
6. Trapped in a Gravitational Abyss
7. I'm the Great Herald of Misery

Heptaedium Lineup:

Florent Lambert - Guitars, Bass, Drums
Mickaël Ratinaud - Vocals

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