Their tagline on Facebook is “Serious music by people who can’t be taken seriously” and I cannot think of a more a great way to describe what I imagine the approach to writing music that Therein takes. I have to agree on one part, this is serious music and any attempt to really box it in would be futile. On what could be described as a musical journey, Aramitama is a ride that everybody should take.
With a range of eclectic influences that should not always work, but somehow do, this album sounds like when you give incredible musicians free rein and tell them to create a metal album with no boundaries or rules. Everything from Jazz, Death metal, Celtic tunes and of course various eras of progressive rock and metal, it is an album that has everything. One may think though, an album of this calibre and skill should have a level of pretentiousness throughout it, but ultimately it is a fun album. Going back to the moniker of the band’s Facebook tagline, it is serious music, but you can tell that the band had a whole lot of fun creating it.
Sometimes when a band sets out on the task to genre-blend and use eclectic influences, it can do a few things. It can lead to a few unnecessary parts being thrown into a song or lead to a band abandoning their identity from one track to another. This is not the case at all with Aramitama. Every note feels absolutely necessary and even though the tracks vary, for example going from tracks like ‘Through the Threshold’ and ‘ALH84001’ to ‘Slainte’ and ‘Wrong Dunn Blues’, there is still a cohesive identity that flows through. Overall, this is a lesson on just how to unleash and make music without boundaries.
Release Year: 2020
Label: self-released
Category: Album
Country: Australia
Reviewed by Kayla Hamilton
Therein: Facebook
