Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an announcement to make.
*Clears up throat and takes a moment of honorable silence*
This album is fucking I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E!!!
Ok, now that this is out, you have two options, dear reader. You can either right now run to your nearest metal selling CD store, buy a copy of this masterpiece and blow your mind while listening to it, OR, you can first read on, find out why I think this CD is a masterpiece and THEN do the above mentioned.

Axamenta consists out of 5 band members and hails from Belgium. Originally they played black metal but about 3 or 4 years ago they made a radical shift in their musical style towards a more progressive and technical approach. In 2004 they released an EP called “Incognation” which features 3 songs.
And now they are back with a truly magnificent full length CD called “Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture” which features all songs from the above mentioned EP plus a lot more.

“Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture” is a concept album on which the story of a man is told who unwillingly took a trip through time and witnessed several events ranging from a natural explosion that took place in Siberia about a century ago which destroyed millions of trees to the plagues of Egypt and more. This story is minutely told not only in the lyrics, but also in the wonderful artwork of the inlay of this CD. Painstaking Photoshop and handiwork have been put into this because the inlay looks like a wall of some decayed study room which is bedecked with all kinds of newspaper articles and letters that all are part of the story. The lyrics of the songs are also hidden amongst there. If you fold the inlay in a square, than it actually forms a kind of room! I love this kind of details. Marvelous!
The artwork on the front of the inlay is also stunning.

To describe the music of “Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture” as just black metal is rather blunt. Because it’s so layered, you cannot fit it in a hole. It has epic and orchestral parts that remind me of Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth, cold and eerie parts that have something Satyricon like to it, deadly thrash riffs in the vein of Soilwork, clean vocal parts that remind me of Evergrey and there is so much more.

All tracks are really diverse, yet they fit into each other like the links of a chain. It all makes sense with each other.

I have noticed a sound, which reminds me of the turning of rusty cogwheels, that keeps coming back on the album. It pops up on the beginning and the ending of almost all songs. It is as if with the passing of each track on the album, the cogwheels push the listener one step closer to the so called “chain reaction”. Again another one of those wonderful little details.

Thumbs up for main vocalist Peter Meynckens who has a fantastic throat that ranges from piercing black screams to dark and deep grunts. The powerful clean vocals of lead guitarist Ian van Gemeren are also worth mentioning for sure but there is a special guest vocalist that wrote and did all the melodic vocals on "Threnody for an Endling" (track 8) and this is non other then mr. Daniel Gildenlöw from Pain of Salvation. Certainly not the first help one could expect from an unexpected corner…

“Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture” was recorded in the famous Jacob Hansen Studios in Hvding, Denmark by Jacob Hansen and Mixed at the Fredman Studio in Göteborg, Sweden by Fredrik Nordström and Patrick Jerksten. It was mastered at The Mastering Room also in Göteborg, Sweden by Göran Finnberg.
All this is very much noticeable because the mix and production are powerful and as clear as crystal.

And do I have any complaints? Nope I haven’t. Axamenta have just plain and simply outdone themselves with “Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture” and this is not surprising since the two years of hard work they did put in to it.
So there you have it, dear reader. “Ever-Arch-I-Tech-Ture” has become a fabulous masterpiece that will undoubtedly find its way to many CD players. Once there, it shall spin its rounds for years to come. Amen.

And now get your ass moving to that CD store!