Album Review: Astralborne – Across the Aeons (Prosthetic Records)

Melodic death metal trio Astralborne are set to release their sophomore full-length, Across the Aeons, via Prosthetic Records on July 28th, 2023. Across the Aeons sees the Midwest, US band dauntlessly grapple with humanity’s cosmic indifference within the universe, pulling influence from philosophical cosmicism and fantasy fiction.

Melodic death metal that is has an interstellar and fantastical feel, it’s good to see Astralborne are back and even better that their return comes with such a strong new release. Across the Aeons features twelve glorious examples of modern melo-death, kicking off with a rager in the form of War Vessel. This beast of furious heaviness and enigmatic melody comes after a short intro called Exordium and really brings the album to life.

It’s a crisp offering next with Nocturneous. Frantic, groovy, melodic, and meaty. It’s a tornado of guitars and drums, with the vocals acting as the weight to keep you in place. Before Skybreaker, Gemini, and December Flower show how Astralborne’s melo-death devolvement has allowed them to push the limits of harmonised heaviness. It’s all about the thrill of familiar melo-death elements with Astralborne’s impressive ability to make it sound fresh.

It’s an out and out ‘old-school’ head-banger in the form of Promethean Fire as Astralborne let the riffs and the melodies soar. It’s completely instrumental, which adds some variety to the overall package. Although, it’s not like anyone could be bored at this stage. Astralborne are one of the new breed of melo-death bands absolutely killing it.

Case in point? Star of Extinction and Paradigm Shift. The former is a blistering and heady hit of heaviness that has some creative progressive touches. Whereas the latter drops you on your head with some force while being impressively epic in length and scope.

Then there is the frenzy of noise that is The Pillars of Creation. Before the ‘true’ epic of this album is revealed. It’s the title track, it’s over nine and a half minutes long, and it is everything great about this band and this album, rolled into one. An exhaustive, but thrilling trawl through the cosmic world of Astralborne and who they have become. It almost makes the finale of Cadence of Sorrow pointless, except it’s a strong sombre outro that allows the listener to ease out of the album, ready to start it all again.

A spectacular release from Astralborne. It’s hard to believe that this is only their second album, such is the refinement of the melo-death sound.

Astralborne – Across the Aeons Track Listing:

1. Exordium
2. War Vessel
3. Nocturneous
4. Skybreaker
5. Gemini
6. December Flower
7. Promethean Fire
8. Star of Extinction
9. Paradigm Shift
10. The Pillars of Creation
11. Across the Aeons
12. Cadence of Sorrow

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