Lista de los grupos Death Metal The Chasm From the Lost Years

While this album is a bit better than I remembered it to be, the overall impression that I have of this album is that it has an absolute ton of potential. And it even fulfills that potential quite a few times. The biggest problem, though, lies in the incredible length of the record, and that overall it isn't as effective as the next few records that this band would do.

From the Lost Years continues where The Chasm left off on their debut; doomy death metal, but with the band's uniquely arcane, mystical sense of both atmosphere and melody. At times, it definitely feels like the halfway point between Procreation of the Inner Temple's trippy, arcane sound and Deathcult For Eternity's haunting, mystical tone. And some of these songs are definitely in the same league of the latter record. The songs overall are better written than what was featured on the debut - for the most part - and at times, the record is pretty spectacular. Tracks like "The Gravelands", "I, The Pastfinder", and "Torn (By the Sunrise)" showcase the band in absolutely excellent, with fantastic riffwork (and in the case of the last track I listed, some fantastic lead guitar work) and a conviningly epic, yet almost personal feel to them. The majority of the songs on here are really very well written, memorable, and dynamic songs that are well structured. The performances are also very good, and better than on the debut; the instrumentation overall is tight and focused, and Daniel Corchado's vocals are in very good form on this record.

What hurts the album is the production and, again, the sheer length of the album. I'll touch on the latter first: this thing clocks in at nearly 75 minutes long (the 11 track version with "Lost Yesterdays, Impossible Tomorrows" as the last song). For comparison, the band's latest record is around 62. I'm not saying long albums are bad by any stretch, and as a matter of fact, this band perfected crafting long records that could still keep your attention throughout. It's not even really an issue of any individual song being bad, but rather listening to the whole thing in one shot is kind of tiring. The production also isn't all that good on here either; it's a bit small and closed in sounding. Everything is audible, but at the same time sort of muffled, which does hurt the impact of the record at times.

That said, despite being flawed, it's still a very worthwhile album. It's hard to absorb as a whole, but overall the songs are well written and showcase the creativity and talent of this band well. Definitely recommended, but Deathcult, Procession..., and Conjuration should be the records you at least check out first before this one.