Dark, broody and atmospheric one minute; heavy, uptempo and brutal the next; "Anima", the new release from Austrian solo project FEANOR OMEGA offers more range than first appears. Starting with high speed riffing and brutality courtesy of album opener "Waiting", it took till the mellower edge of "Drowning" to kick in before this album started growing on me with the subtlety of it's changes and the breadth of its vision- "Drowning" is slow and mellow, but features some huge bass slaps which really seem to pull you in.

While the Death-ier elements of the album are still to grab me, the mellow moments on the record are haunting and beautiful. Both "Missing Home" and "Not all Who Wander Are Lost" are haunting, largely instrumental songs, really creating a moving atmosphere to end the album on. "Epos: Anima" is the album's climactic point, a 12 and a half minute epic of changing moods and tempos, even featuring some ghostly chanting. "Otherworld" shows off the way in which the group move from furious riffing and heavy guitars to ethereal sounds.

The biggest drawback of the album for me is the quality of the production of the heavier tracks. The louder volumes somehow create an effect that makes the vocals sound like they were recorded in a cave, and the levels of the different instruments have lost lots of their balance. The snare drum overpowers the rest of the band, and the guitar tone becomes quite thin. These issues seem to resolve again once the tracks mellow out again.

Overall, the album has some good moments, especially the more mellow, calm ones where the dark atmospherics really succeed at capturing a deep melancholy. However when they are in full Black Metal mode, there is not much to make this album stand out from the crowd. More one to buy a few tracks from rather than the whole album.