Listening to this album started in the worst way. A voice screaming the same phrase without music. He then screamed the same phrase with music and repeated it quite often during the almost six minutes of the opener, self-titled track, “Corpus”. Unfortunately, things did not change for the better afterwards.
Astrophobos come from Sweden and their journey started in 2009. Their discography includes three full-length albums, along with this, as well as two EPs. The style of their choice is melodic black metal, something that is not easily deduced either from their name or from the rather strange and unusual cover.
“Corpus” includes seven songs and lasts 36 minutes. I cannot say that it excited me at some point, but that does not mean that the band has not done a good job in general. Their music does not have any originality but a fan of this sound will not get bored listening to it. But how much he will continue to listen to it from then on, is another matter.
The Swedes play with great ease in both fast and medium speeds. The characteristic riffs of the Swedish melodic black scene fill the album from beginning to end and it seems that guitarists Martin Andersson and Jonas Ehlin did a lot of good work on this. I will say the same for some nice acoustic breaks that help the listener’s ear to relax a bit.
From bands of a similar style, I would say that they reminded me a lot of their countrymen Naglfar. But what I did not like at all and I could not get used to it as many times as I listened to the album, are the vocals of (also bassist) Mikael Broman. I think they are very extreme for a band with such melody in their music and they would fit better in a more raw and dark black metal style.
In conclusion, the third full-length record of Astrophobos is a good suggestion for the fans of melodic black metal sound. I repeat that I personally was not excited but it is not that they did a bad job. Best moment the last one “Under Jord” with the female vocals of Elisabetta Marchetti of Italian doomsters Inno.
