Album Review: The Lylat Continuum – Ephemeral (Self Released)

Progressive death metal/progressive metal newcomers The Lylat Continuum (Ft. members of The Contortionist and Last Chance To Reason) will release their debut album, Ephemeral, on Friday, February 19th 2021

The Lylat Continuum formed in Denver, Colorado in 2016 by members Chrys Robb, Chris Garza, Ian Turner, and Mike Caramazza. The group’s goal upon formation was to create music with a bit of something for everyone while pushing boundaries and striving to create a new sound.

A space epic that really needs to be experienced as one full listen thanks, in part, to how each track flows into each other. Ephemeral embodies the imposing nothingness of distant worlds, empty and vast, and hallucinogenic sights and sounds. Yes, it’s impossible to not talk about this album without looking at one of the most important aspects… the psychedelic edge it has.

It’s rare combination. Technical/progressive death metal and psychedelia. However, after hearing Ephemeral you’ll want to hear more bands attempting this, even if The Lylat Continuum have set the bar incredibly high already.

After the incredible intro of Into the Vast, it’s two humongous and incredibly detailed efforts that come next with Zero and Epyon. Everything you need to know about The Lylat Continuum can be found here. From crunching riff-work and powerhouse percussion to the savage vocal style, the trippy twists and turns, and the sheer blast of head-banging noise that comes out. It’s captivatingly detailed and has more shifts then a race car but The Lylat Continuum make it sound so simple.

If you’re not absolutely spent keeping up after those, Level 5 might be significantly shorter but isn’t any kinder on the brain matter. The guitar solo that crops up around the 2-minute mark is immense but there’s a more ‘relaxed’ stance here. Even if it is still crushingly heavy.

Meta then grabs hold and drags the listener hurtling through space and time for a frantic instrumental head-banger bathed in gorgeous melody. Sector Y is (just short of) 3 minutes of unnerving and woozy sounding melody before Libra brings back the heavy in furious style. The vocals, having taken a backseat to proceedings on the previous two tracks, are blistering here. Then throw in the bone-cracking bass and drums and we have here, one of the most intense tracks on the album.

Which then leads to the finale, the gargantuan finale that is the title track. Unlike the other massive sounding tracks, it’s not about length here but rather the scale of what is achieved. From the initial emptiness of the spacy effects to the eruption of vibrancy that comes from the instruments, it has such impact.

They’ve nailed the space-themed psychedelic sound they were going for while still delivering on the technical death metal side of things. Amazing.

The Lylat Continuum – Ephemeral Full Track Listing

1. Into the Vast
2. Zero
3. Epyon
4. Level 5
5. Meta
6. Sector Y
7. Libra
8. Ephemeral

Links

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