Band:	Be'lakor
Album:	Vessels
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	June 24, 2016
A review by:	ScreamingSteelUS

01. Luma
02. An Ember's Arc
03. Withering Strands
04. Roots To Sever
05. Whelm
06. A Thread Dissolves
07. Grasping Light
08. The Smoke Of Many Fires

Be'lakor is one of the most highly-praised and widely-beloved bands on Metal Storm, and I guess now we know which album is going to sweep our melodeath category come awards season; but before you storm away in a petulant huff complaining about popularity contests and unfair competition, allow me to explain why Vessels will be the album leading its buddies by 600 votes next February.

Kicking off the band's fourth full-length, "Luma" clocks in at two minutes flat, but receives as much loving attention to detail as any of the lengthy epics situated later in the album. Be'lakor does not waste a single second of this album's running time; building towards two minutes or ten, every moment recorded is a chance to bring to life some new flavor. Where most bands would have written a simple intro, Be'lakor wrote a unique and gripping song to lead off Vessels. The band immediately dives into the multifarious, dramatic atmosphere that cloaks these technically-impressive, moody melodeath tracks, upping the ante shortly with "An Ember's Arc" and continuing the momentum throughout the whole album.

The main reason this album works for me is the array of tonal qualities utilized by Be'lakor. Every layer of this cake - the vocals, the guitars, the piano/keyboards, the bass, the drums, all of it - sounds simply beautiful to me for reasons I lack the vocabulary to properly transcribe. George Kosmas's guttural growls explode with passion and ferocity rivaled by few death metal vocalists; his gravelly tone brings a distinct gravitas, resembling the inhuman gurgling of Demilich's Antti Boman while retaining the focus and sensitivity of Mikael Åkerfeldt. Guitars in tracks like "An Ember's Arc," "Withering Strands," and "The Smoke Of Many Fires" continuously offer new and exciting developments, offering melody while still driving the low end and innovating through somber but earnest strains. The keyboards in the mid-section of "The Smoke Of Many Fires," slippery and dynamic while also entrancing and mystifying, are perhaps the album's highlight in my eyes.

Be'lakor wields the deep, rich textures that make classic Opeth so endlessly majestic; the instinctual knack for meaningful songwriting that propels Amorphis beyond "catchy" and into "transcendent"; the wise mediation of interlocking instrumental threads that made late-era Death a musical deity; the dark, velvety swaths of antediluvian fury that let Primordial live up to its name; the overpowering presence and thunderous exploitation of percussion that make Amon Amarth a force to be reckoned with; and the icy temper that At The Gates unleashes so violently. I honestly can't think of a description better than "chocolate cake tone," even though nothing on Vessels sounds especially like John Petrucci.

For the skeptical or stony-eared observer, the above comparisons probably make sense. Why is Be'lakor so obsessively over-rated on this site? Because it combines all the OTHER obsessively over-rated bands. What I hear, though, more than other bands or an unusually good frolic with melodeath or even this beast called Be'lakor, is a group of musicians deeply in tune with their instruments, with each other, and with the style of music they set out to play, and the passion that lets them succeed.

Be'lakor put thought and effort into every moment of this album and imbued every note with intense emotion. This album succeeds at basically everything; every aspect of Vessels has been explored with forethought and played with passion. There are shades of brilliance in the instrumentation, the rhythms, the song structures, the intonations, the production, the melodies - too many things to spell out. I wasn't even a Be'lakor fanboy until I heard this album, but I guess my tastes are changing.