The Artisan Era have been the source of progressive technical metal for my reviewing purposes for a couple of years now, and while I do appreciate Inanimate Existence, Singularity, Immanifest, Equipoise and Flub, I’m beginning to notice a growing trend: bands with either no identity, sounding almost exactly like their labelmates, often having a hard time putting together a cogent song worth listening to twice. This is never a matter of skill or imagination or creativity – for all these are in abundance – compositions simply pass you by without you going "Ha, now, that is interesting" or "check out that cool riff". Sadly, such is the case with the Californian technical melodic death metallers Symbolik. Possibly taking their name from Death’s legendary 6th opus, Symbolik have been at their craft since 2010, with one EP, "Pathogenesis" EP (2011), signaling their intent, this debut full length.

There is no question that Chris Blackburn (vocals), Taylor Whitney (guitars), Allen Burton (lead guitars), Daniel Juarez (bass), Brandon "Billy The Kid" Clevenstine (drums, samples) do a superb job each in his own profession on these 10 tracks of "Emergence". Their brand of Cradle Of Filth/The Black Dahlia Murder by way of Soilwork technical wizzardry is impressive, but there is literally one track that has something unique and fresh on offer, the opener, "The Augury Of The Ancients", and yes, it does sound like their labelmates, Augury. The rest is cut off from the same cloth – lots of signature changes, copious amounts of melody bursting forth in torrents so that none of them stands out or stays in, change into a more peaceful territory, sometimes more brutal riff or change of pace, next. The whole album is like this and at the end of it you don’t remember a single riff, melody or a vocal hook. The best comparison is Arsis’ debut "A Celebration Of Guilt", what I often call metal for metal’s sake.

Perhaps "Emergence" is my cue to start being more selective and start excercising more scrutiny when considering dowloads from this stable, from now on. Today I award 4 points – for craft and not the substance – but if that is what The Artisan Era continue to offer, this kind of soulless, over the top, highly technical overkill, with compositions which aren’t allowed to breathe, I won’t continue to take the time to listen, download, or review it.

https://symbolik.bandcamp.com/