Antirope‘s story is currently being written.
Founded in 2015 in Germany by Slaven Stokic (vocals/guitar) and Patrick Fleischer (guitar/vocals), later joined by Julie Fleischer (bass) and Tobi Schauseil (drums), the band signed with Eclipse Records for the release of Amnesia, their debut album.
Is This the End, the first track, immediately sets groovy, catchy tones before the rhythm becomes more dissonant and slower to welcome vocals. The contrast between this track’s two parts ultimately becomes very coherent and complementary, before Black Or Two reveals more accessible sounds overlaid with a healthy fix of Alternative/Grunge-influenced saturation. Once again, the mix remains relatively catchy, as on Dead Sun, which is more melancholic with a more haunting approach, letting clean vocals slowly bewitch us. The band don’t fail to exploit their Post-Rock roots to accentuate the heavy side, which we also find on Beautiful Liar, whose jerky rhythm breathes despair before bursting into flames to suffocate us on its final part. Ropes follows, keeping the same groovy, heady dissonant approach, but allowing itself a burst of energy at the end before returning to softer tones on Give Me More, where clean sound occupies the first part of the track. Saturation returns to energize the riffs, then Passenger hypnotizes us with a slow but haunting rhythm thanks to a strangely melodious guitar sound, especially on this intense break. Quietness leads into Time Is A Killer, which disrupts it with its abrasive heaviness, while vocal parts are still firmly anchored, as is Everything You Are, which lets its Progressive roots fully express themselves on this soothing track, whose rhythm only gets stronger in the second half. Amnesia, the next composition, adopts cold Industrial tones borrowed from a well-known American project, which is adorned with the band’s touch on the most energetic moments, then disappears on Utopia, the long last track, which offers us little touches of energy to punctuate its march to nothingness.
Amnesia is an astonishing album, which gets us used to a certain dissonant melancholy borrowed from Doom, before breaking it down to place a wide range of influences under an Alternative base that Antirope assumes and handles like no one else.
75/100