SYMPHONY OF HEAVEN - The Season of Death
Symphony of Heaven is a one man symphonic death metal band, aka Logan Thompson of Indiana, which formed, did some songs on compilations, signed with Nosral Recordings, and released this full length all within the year 2017.
This album is fully fleshed out and displays a wide variety of excellent and intelligent music. Symphony of Heaven stays primarily in progressive melodic death metal territory, utilizing symphonic synthesizer elements to create a movie soundtrack palette. Logan varies his vocal style, in his low end death metal growl sounding very much like Bruce Fitzhugh of Living Sacrifice fame, but also stretching out into black metal shrieks and howls.
It's not all whiplash fury either, some songs, such as "Stratagem" vary between a slower rhythm section and blastbeats, accompanied by clean metal guitar picking, leading to some righteous clean metal soloing. The slow/fast dichotomy adds to listener enjoyability, as the band flirts with both doom and speed elements, sometimes within the same song.
"The Meditations of My Heart" breaks up the middle of the album with an atmospheric instrumental introspection, with slower acoustic and electric guitars and symphonic keys. "Come and Rest" is my favorite track, building in crescendo from a slower song to a fiery finish, galloping blastbeats and all. Cover art is great and fits the band's sound perfectly. Content is distinctly Christian and praise-centric in some songs. An excellent debut that has stayed in my cd player for a long time. (Nosral Recordings) 4 out of 5 stars
