Macabre Omen - The Ancient Returns (Digipak CD)

Review

..."An Ode to Rhode" is perhaps my favorite here, with lovely acoustic guitars that morph into surges of majestic force, then back again, while the riffing landscape continues to deliver one memorial, memorable guitar line after the next. The lyrics are rather sparse on the album, and certainly such compositions could have benefited from more meat for the mind, but their simplicity is a stunning trait in its own right, and the massive, airy pain felt in Alexandros' tone does somewhat compensate. Production-wise, The Ancient Returns is both broad and searing, not polished off enough to turn away the rawheads, but also clean enough in its delivery that some obvious effort was placed in maintain the material's resonance. The drums offer an appreciable charging undertow, the bass ever present and distinguished, and the axes felling neck and limb, blade and shield as they pitch through spikes of tremolo bliss and rushes of chord-initiated atmosphere. - From the Dust Returned 4/5