Technical/progressive death metal band Equipoise are a band that I have been anxiously waiting for a new album after three years since they first dropped their EP in 2013 titled Birthing Homunculi. Now being signed to The Artisan Era, Demiurgus is a concept album about a iconic Anime franchise known as Fullmetal Alchemist. Music wise, this is the finest piece of technical and progressive death metal records you’ll hear from 2019. It has a lot of craftsmanship, technical skill play, amazing songwriting and the beautiful artwork truly represents the narration behind the songs. You have some incredible musicians who are on this album featuring Hugo Doyon-Karout of Beyond Creation, Nick Padovani from Virulent Depravity, Stevie Boiser of INFERI and Tethys, Jimmy Pitts from NYN, Phil Tougas from First Fragment, Cosmic Atrophy, Serocs, Chthe’ilist and Zealotry and last, but certainly not least you got Sanjay Kumar of the brutal death metal band Wormhole who are all amazing in their own musical way.
While they were formed in 2015 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this record introduces technical prowess, greater senses of instrumentation, smooth textures and a magnificent display of progressive structures while the technicality aspects are absolutely gorgeous to hear. Fourteen tracks and clocking in around an hour and three three minutes in duration, this is an album I truly think they’ve not only evolved themselves to grow more matured, but this is passion at finest. Songs such as A Suit of My Flesh, Dualis Flamel, Alchemic Web of Deceit, Squall of Souls and closer to the album being Ouroboric, Demiurgus is stacked up with special guests including Malcolm Pugh of INFERI, Julien “Nutz” Deyres from France’s Gorod, Christian Münzner of Alkaloid, Nate Miller from The Ritual Aura and many more whom all have been outstanding for making every compositions stand out from one another without making this record stale.
Lyrically, they’ve undoubtedly created important pieces of music as the songwriting manages to be extremely compelling and done a magnificent job where the progressive extreme natures of structures are fresh, organic and accessible. I cannot grasp my mind how intellectual this record is fully demonstrated as I began to appreciate the musicianship, astonishing arrangements from the instrumentals and the glorious atmosphere within the production and sound mix is just so appreciative to my standards. If you enjoyed Obscura, Necrophagist, Gorod, Beyond Creation and Vale Of Pnath you’re certainly going to love Pennsylvania’s Equipoise with Demiurgus.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
