ADUANTEN, the melodic death metal project featuring members of OBSEQUIAE, VEX, PANOPTICON, and HORRENDOUS, unleashes its full power on the new album, "Apocryphal Verse." Combining ferocious, intricate riffs with a profound sense of sorrow and hopelessness, ADUANTEN crafts a sound that is both aggressive and beautifully melancholic. This is melodic death metal at its most potent and atmospheric. Editorial: I am usually somewhat skeptic about "supergroups," or the combination of members from some well know bands, because the sum doesn't always equal the parts. In other words, some of the creative magic that fuels their main bands can get lost when they step out and form a side project. But, let's go into this with an open mind.

The album has four songs, and "Cerulean Dream" is first. A thick, overgrown guitar sound comes out of the gate, with desperate harsh vocals, but there are also atmospheric sections in the song. It's stuck firmly between naked aggression and ethereal depression. "Decameron" has slow, steady clean melodies that are still sad. The distorted riff carries a lot of pain, anguish, and torture with it, and the harsh vocals echo that sentiment. They also work in melody, and weave it into the song like a golden thread. It's akin to someone wearing their emotions on their sleeve. "Grace of Departure" has a groovy swing to it, with clean guitars and a bit of a sentimental feeling. Still a bit sad, all things considered, it is also overflowing with emotion. When the thicker Death Metal moves in, it's like a shifting of the tides, and rises up with anger.

"The Weakening Sovereign" is the final song, and it seems to meld all of the previous sounds we have heard on the first three songs into one cohesive song. The harsher tones are near obliterating, but the band doesn't drop the melody too far behind. For a music aficionado who digests 600+ albums a year for the past 10+ years, and is always on the hunt for something new and unique, I can say that this is a sound that is on the fringe of where I see Metal headed in the future, and they are already charting the course. Deep within each layer, there are mysteries waiting to be discovered, and their intelligent approach to songwriting where they are able to control some of the chaos is noteworthy.