Review: Eigenstate Zero – Sensory Deception

Do you know Eigenstate Zero? In case you don’t, I strongly recommend you to make sure you do. However, it’s not that strange if you haven’t heard of this band, since Eigenstate Zero doesn’t have a huge discography or something like that. In fact, they only just released their debut album last November. It’s titled Sensory Deception and what a hell of a debut this is! The Swede Christian Ludvigsson is Eigenstate Zero’s mastermind and sole member.

In case the very eye-catching and detailed cover of Sensory Deception doesn’t attract your attention, the music on this album certainly will. Both are very interesting and offer a lot of content.

The pounding basis of Eigenstate Zero’s pummeling death metal on Sensory Deception consists of a humming bass, heavily chopping drums, growls and tight guitar-riffs, such as in Eigenstates, Zentropic and Godeater, while these are interchanging with a more melodic sounding guitar at some moments, such as in 1984.2, The Nihilist and Transhuman, but that definitely isn’t all Sensory Deception offers…

That aforementioned big amount of content, where it comes to the music on Sensory Deception, isn’t only due to the quite long duration of this album, Sensory Deception gives you as much as one hour and fifteen minutes of death metal pleasure. It’s also due to the big amount of variation on this album. The fact that that big amount of variation doesn’t become an overload is partly due to the album’s duration, but also is due to Christian’s perfect timing and balancing of these variations. That makes the variation on this album Sensory Deception‘s biggest power.

Those variations are in the many rhythm-changes, such as in Strangelets and Transhuman, but also in the many different additions to that aforementioned basis, including some that could be called surprising for sure.

A few examples of those additions are some screams, such as in Eigenstates and Strangelets, some very nice guitarsolos, such as in The Nihilist, Communion, Transhuman and Comatorium, with the solos in The Nihilist and Transhuman being guest contributions of “Mrguitarmanguy” (The Nihilist) and Piotr Galiński “vordrab” (Transhuman). However, these additions aren’t very surprising in death metal.

The regularly returning symphonic additions, such as in Communion and Strangelets, the folky sounds, such as in The Nihilist, the jazzy/bluesy parts around seven minutes into Strangelets and towards the end of Transhuman, the two acoustic guitar pieces in Zentropic, one alongside grunts, one with clean vocals, as well as the big amount of added sounds in various ways, such as in Eigenstates and Strangelets, can surely be called surprising though.

When you’ve listened to Sensory Deception for over one hour, thirteen minutes and thirty-one seconds and only have one minute and thirty-six seconds to go, you would probably think that Sensory Deception isn’t going to surprise you anymore during this listening session. That’s not true though. Album closer Fringes may be quite short, but surely is very nice and surprising. Don’t expect heavily pounding death metal here, no chopping drums and tight riffs, but an atmospheric vibe with a very nice sounding acoustic guitar and clean vocals, sung by Christian as well as by another guest on this album, Elise “aimlesswarrior”. Elise’s guest vocals may be very subtle, but that works perfectly due to the very nice timing.

I think it’s quite clear that I am very enthusiastic about Sensory Deception. I only have one comment to give, which certainly isn’t reducing how nice Sensory Deception is in its entirety, because it’s something which only is about a little detail. It’s about the regularly returning subtle second guitar-line, which by the way is another very nice addition. However, this second guitar is, in my opinion, a bit too much in the background during the first two songs on this album, Fringe and 1984.2, compared to, for example, Strangelets, in which this is less the case.

As said this doesn’t reduce anything when speaking about Sensory Deception in its entirety. With Sensory Deception, Eigenstate Zero delivered a very strong debut, which is recommended for sure. And for everyone who hasn’t got enough Eigenstate Zero material with Sensory Deception‘s one hour and fifteen minutes, there’s good news: the second album is already written!

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