With twelve tracks and a run time of an hour and twenty one minutes, DYSYLUMN's third full length album "Cosomogonie," is one hell of a meaty album. How meaty? Too many meatballs. I'm all for some long albums (huge Doom metal fan here) but only if it calls for it. And this album doesn't really require it. You see, this album is telling the story of the creation of the universe. Obviously some thing like that requires such a lengthy album. Or does it? It doesn't. The album is broken down into three parts: Tracks 1-4 (Apparition), 5-8 (Dispersion) and 9-12 (Extinction).

Of these three chapters, each has a dark ambient intro/interlude that has absolutely no business being on this album. Each one is just pointless noise that adds nothing to the listening experience. I'm sure in the context of the album writing process and the bands perspective on the story these sections make sense. But bands often forget they have fans who listen to their music so their self indulgent add ons really mean nothing to us, the listeners.

With that out of the way, I must say the nine remaining tracks are of a high quality nature. There is a decent amount of variety across all nine songs and they certainly wonderfully represent the very adventurous and ambitious nature of the album's concept. With all that said, even taking away the dark ambient sections, the album is still a bit bloated with several of the songs going on longer than needed though they all have something good to offer.

After the aforementioned intro that is just noise and ambient noises, the first proper track, "Apparition I," hits pretty hard with twisting riffs and rapid paced drumming.  The vocals are deep and throaty on this track, with a strong growl but has the echo type production that is common in black metal.  The vocals are appropriately harrowing and the guitar has decent tone, balancing cold, more traditional black metal with hints of melody.  The bass stands out surprisingly well, something a lot of black metal doesn't get right.

"Apparition II" also begins with a speedy attack but this track has a more atmospheric feel to it, mostly due to the excellent bass and the rough clean vocals that litter the song in between more blackened howls and barks.  This track changes tempo often and it kept me guessing where it was going to go next. The "Dispersion," section of the album sounds like a different beast.  Instead of hitting rapidly, the "I" part is much more methodical in its approach and the overall atmosphere is even colder.  The second part begins like sections of "Apparition" but its the middle part that stands out of the most.  With the bass, lead guitar, and nearly spoken word vocals, this track has heavy ACLEST vibes although they are obviously a lot more raw.

The "Extinction," part is, as you would have guessed, is much more dark and intense than the sections that came before it. The middle part of the song brings back some of that "post" feel the band has incorporated but they throw a curve ball with the second part. "Extinction II" is extremely introspective, a cosmic power withdrawn into itself to slowly regrow outwards once more, destroying and creating as it goes.   Hints of both sorrow and adventure come off the song in waves and I found it to be my favorite track on the album.

All in all, "Cosmogonie," isn't a bad album by any means.  If you got the time to dive into it, and the patience to get through some of the bloat, then black metal fans will find a good album here.