EPITIMIA is a three-piece Atmospheric Black Metal, Post-Rock influenced band from Saint-Petersburg, Russia. "Allusion" is the band's sixth full-length album. It sums up the band's long period of creative activity through rethinking and allegory. It represents a doorway to their future and a revealing of the true power that has always flowed like a hidden, underground stream through their previous albums.

"Clue I: Animist" leads off the album. It opens with some solemn guitar tones and a bit of background ambiance. When the main sound kicks in, it's Black Metal, but done tastefully, and without that horrid wall of sound or vocal shrieks you often hear. The atmospheric elements help to keep it away from that territory. "Clue II: Melecolia I" opens with a more traditional Black Metal sound, thick with riffs and drums, and vocal screams. I also pick up on some Post Rock influence...a genre that I very much enjoy. The melancholy nature of the song cannot be denied...it's buried deep within, and comes to a crashing crescendo at the end.

"Clue III: Waiting for the Doom" opens with a slower pace, and even some hopeful notes. But, they are short lived, as the doom seeps in and swallows the room you are in, slowly choking you to death. The lead guitars build a solemn quality to the song. "Clue IV: I Aspire like a Bird" opens with choppy lead guitars that build in and out. Once again, it's the lead guitars that provide much of the melody here. Close to the half-way mark, it drops to a beautiful passage with clean guitars, before returning with an ardent sound, taking us to completion, with some eerie tones at the end. "Clue V: Altered State of Consciousness" opens with soma anguished screams before the unexpected clean female vocals offer a note of beauty to the listener. The screams return, with more vengeance, then it's back to the alluring female vocals again.

"Clue VI: Schizophrenia" is close to nine-minutes, and roars out the gate with passion. It goes pretty hard then lets up a couple minutes in, with clean and doleful guitars, before returning with some nicely built melodies from the leads. It ends with big guitar strikes and the feeling that you were just beat down. "Clue VII: Post Scriptum" closes the album. It opens with almost playful bass guitar notes, with some eerie leads. This is way out of the spectrum that I would have expected. Clean male vocals almost remind you of THE CURE in many ways. The guitar melodies are wonderful, and I love their sense of experimentation. Harsh vocals some in, as well as some more rhythm guitars, but that sound from the opening is still present...just a bit more subdued.

Overall, I really enjoyed the album...that sense of competing elements working together but still retaining their core sound, and that last song was definitely a bit of a wild card. This is Black Metal for those who appreciate something out of the box. Sure, the roots are there, but they extend past the genre boundaries and build melodies from the guitar work. It's not all about death, the end of the world, and eternal darkness. Light lives within, that you have to dig a bit to get, but it's there. Bravo!