Esoteric: Paragon Of Dissonance – new album

“Slowly, slowly but steadily a sound rises from the deep. This sound starts up deceptively upon a lighter note, but rapidly turns into a swelling tide of massively droning guitars. Vocals are crushing in like a tidal wave, breaking with a voice as harsh and resonant as a maelstrom of grinding granite. Streams of sonic magma are constantly intertwining, twisting, melting together, then exploding into colors, forming patterns and dissolving into chaos again. Shapes, visions and scenes tumble into the mind, luring the soul out of the flesh only to take it firmly into an unrelenting musical grip and take the imagination down into a seething miasma of melancholy and pain.”

This fair description of ESOTERIC sixth album (or any other ESOTERIC album for that matter), ‘Paragon Of Dissonance’, comes from the band's official bio. Released via Season Of Mist Records in Europe today, November 11th, 2011, ‘Paragon Of Dissonance’ awaits its North American release come November 15th, 2011. Decide for yourselves if the latest recorded offering by England's doom metallers is their finest and most accessible work, by listening to the impressive track, ‘Cipher’, available below and downloadable free of charge here. Unless suffering from depression, buy ‘Paragon Of Dissonance’ here (Season Of Mist).

Formed in 1992 in Birmingham, England, ESOTERIC recorded an 82-minute long demo tape they named ‘Esoteric Emotions – The Death Of Ignorance’ and invented a new musical formula that consists of psychedelic elements mixed with classical doom & death metal along the way, before signing with Aesthetic Death Records on which the group released a double CD titled ‘Epistemological Despondency’ (1994) and second double CD (with a total running time of 115 minutes) ‘The Pernicious Enigma’ (1997). ESOTERIC's third album, ‘Metamorphogenesis’, follwed in 1999:

“Out of England comes the searing ESOTERIC with their epic, crushing style of despair-ridden atmospheric doom metal. … Listening to ESOTERIC is like experiencing an exorcism of the soul. Each of the three long songs makes for a surreal journey through the listener's endless stream of consciousness, where it unmasks hidden fears and insecurities. … ‘Metamorphogenesis’ could serve as the expressionist soundtrack to the apocalypse and its indescribable aftermath,” [made the painful journey through the album Jason Hundey, AllMusic – more here]

ESOTERIC's first on Season Of Mist Records was their 2004's ‘Subconscious Dissolution Into The Continuum’. Listen to the 5-minutes sample of the nearly 16-minutes long opening track ‘Morphia’ here (Season Of Mist):

“Weighing in at three and a half songs in 50 minutes (track four, ‘Arcane Dissolution’, is really no more than a becalmed space rock coda to the 17-minute epic ‘Grey Day’), these lengthy songs feature complex, suite-like structures and artfully composed passages that still manage to rock with maximum heaviosity,” [commented Stewart Mason, AllMusic – more here]

Guitarist and vocalist Greg Chandler and guitarist Gordon Bicknell were joined by new bassist Mark Bodossian, new drummer Joe Fletcher and keyboardist Olivier Goyet, before entering the Priory Recording Studios to record (mix an master) ESOTERIC's critically acclaimed fifth album, 2008's ‘The Maniacal Vale’.

ESOTERIC features: Greg Chandler – vocals and guitar, Gordon Bicknell – guitar, Kris Clayton – guitar, Mark Bodossian – bass, Olivier Goyet – keyboards and Joe Fletcher - drums