Band:	Assemble The Chariots
Album:	Ephemeral Trilogy Episode 1: Unyielding Night
Style:	Symphonic deathcore
Release date:	July 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Aquilegia In Peril
02. Departure
03. Admorean Monolith
04. As Was Seen By Augurers
05. Shimmering, Pulsing Glow
06. Evermurk
07. Reavers March
08. Ephemeral Stream
09. Emancipation
10. Keepers Of The Stars
11. Empress
12. Last Line Of Defence
13. Galactic Order
14. Equinox

With a formation date of 2008 and a debut album release date in 2024, it has truly taken an historic amount of time to Assemble The Chariots; however, it’s a fascinating history to explore, and one that’s led to a remarkable present.

The Finnish ensemble have undergone a number of line-up changes over those 14 years, although guitar duo Kevin Apostol and Niklas Turunen have remained consistent in their presence over the years. While it’s certainly been a long journey to the release of Ephemeral Trilogy Episode 1: Unyielding Night (and it’s even more certainly ambitious to announce such a long-awaited debut album as the first entry in a trilogy), Assemble The Chariots haven’t laid dormant in the intervening period. A sequence of four EPs released between 2009 and 2020 have shown the band’s evolution from blackened deathcore origins towards an increasingly grandiose sound, but even their more recent EPs fall short of the sheer bombast encountered on Unyielding Night.

As you might expect from the verbose title, there are concept album elements to Unyielding Night, including spoken word narration. These may test the patience of some listeners, particularly when full interlude tracks (see “Last Line Of Defence”) are dedicated to them. There are also more multifaceted interludes; “Ephemeral Stream” (which perhaps veers slightly into Mechina territory) does have some narration, but also clean singing segments, as well as majestic orchestral arrangements. When it comes to orchestrations and their integration alongside the metal, I reckon that Assemble The Chariots have pushed things are far as Shadow Of Intent, if not further; this is symphonic deathcore with a capital ‘S’, rivalling the fusions of extremity and elegancy that Septicflesh have become so renowned for.

Another way in which Assemble The Chariots exhibit similarity with Shadow Of Intent is when it comes to the ‘deathcore’ side of the equation; while it is the primary metallic genre in the fabric of Unyielding Night (and undeniably so, when encountering grandstand breakdowns such as on “Galactic Order”), there’s a versatility to the album that pushes it beyond the confines of the genre. The simplistic accessibility of “Admorean Monolith” echoes a similar track from Shadow Of Intent’s Elegy titled “Of Fury”, and for large portions sounds like it could have found its way onto a mid-era Nightwish had it featured different vocals. A song that features different vocals to contrast the primary deep-throated deathcore growls that dominate the album is “Emancipation”; it’s one of a couple on which dramatic high-pitched cleans appear, and the way they soar out against the relentless blasting instrumental backdrop immediately inspires thoughts of Fleshgod Apocalypse, while other moments on the song feel less rooted in deathcore and more reminiscent of melodeath/extreme power metal.

Although there are 14 tracks on Unyielding Night, their mostly brief runtimes (only 2 span more than 5 minutes) ensure that the album as a whole totals up to a manageable 52 minutes. Highlights from across those minutes include “Departure”, the first song to demonstrate the sheer extent of the band’s orchestrations and their synergy with the metallic core of the music, and “As Was Seen By Augurers”, during moments in which one can hear tremolo-heavy glimpses of the band’s more blackened early material. Perhaps the standouts from the record’s early stages, however, are “Evermurk” and “Reavers March”; the former makes a big impact with semi-clean emphatic vocals in its chorus that hit a similar mark to Chris Wiseman’s work in Shadow Of Intent, while the latter, for all of the album’s relentless use of jackhammer blast beats, really grabs the listener’s attention with its slower, triumphant second half and the pyrotechnic solo that lights said passage up.

If I were to highlight any lulls in the tracklist, I would have to look towards the double-header of “Keepers Of The Stars” and “Empress”. The former has a similarly stomping mid-tempo pace as “Admorean Monolith”, and at its most majestically symphonic it is quite captivating, but the flat-four plodding beat can get a bit bland at times. “Empress”, from what I can tell, is the oldest song from the album that had been released prior (dating back to 2021), but as much as I am a sucker for djent in general, I’m not convinced the guitar tone fits the album here that well. Still, Assemble The Chariots re-establish full momentum before the positively euphoric final song “Equinox”, which is both the longest and surely the most extravagant song on the record.

I hope that the remainder of the Ephemeral Trilogy is going to arrive more swiftly that Episode 1, as Unyielding Night is a highly respectable new entry into the ever-growing symphonic deathcore scene, particularly due to the ambition, breadth and quality of its songwriting.