Changeling unveils its ambitious debut album.

Created by guitarist Tom Fountainhead (ex-Obscura, Belphegor, Defeated Sanity…), the project has surrounded itself with Mike Heller (drums, Fear Factory, Malignancy, Raven), Arran McSporran (bass, Vipassi, Virvum) and Morean (vocals, Alkaloid, ex-Dark Fortress) as well as 50 guests to create its first album, Changeling.

This orchestra of 50 musicians and guest vocalists includes such well-known names in the metal world as Bill Hudson (Doro, I am Morbid), Jason Gobel (ex-Cynic, ex-Monstrosity), Andy Laroque (King Diamond, ex-Death), Yatziv Caspi (ex-Orphaned Land), Ally Storch (Subway To Sally) and James Dorton (The Faceless, NeObliviscaris, Black Crown Initate…).

The album kicks off with Introject, where you quickly become familiar with the intricate guitar keys and the heavy, jerky instrumental, before welcoming the vocals on Instant Results, which ignites in an instant. Choirs and orchestrations lend an epic touch to the track, while the guitars are given pride of place in between vocal interventions, followed by the powerful Falling In Circles, which blends the musicians’ obvious technicality with unbridled violence. The overall atmosphere is darker and heavier than on the previous track, but World What World soon adds a few airy touches before once again becoming menacing and heavy, thanks to the keyboards and diversified vocal parts. The orchestrations reinforce the mix before calming down to join Metanoia Interlude, a real moment of floating on the piano, but still a little chaotic, before returning to saturation on Changeling, the eponymous track that skilfully blends heaviness, violence and many strange sounds. The break with percussion and oriental touches is one of them, but the fury soon returns to lead us to Abyss and its oppressive patterns, which are as dark and mysterious as they are crushing most of the time, but also a little more aggressive at times. The leads come back to air out the imposing riffs, before Cathexis Interlude allows us another pause in the strange to join Abdication and its very gentle, almost (too?) cheerful and luminous introduction, which gradually darkens and sticks to what we’ve come to expect from the project. The central cosmic break brings a new moment of calm, but we soon return to violence in its various forms before letting the long Anathema develop every aspect of the band’s sound for nearly seventeen minutes of technicality, violence and, above all, this multiplication of atmospheres as different as they are complementary, where the different universes complement and confront each other.

Complexity is a relatively weak word to describe Changeling. The album is one of the richest and most diverse I’ve listened to in a long time, but it will probably be far too full for some. Changeling remains a very interesting project, capable of exploring a wide range of influences.

80/100

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