THE CONGREGATION

When I first listened to the single, "The Price", I totally fell in love with it: the perfect combination of complexity and simplicity, a catchy song with challenging rhythms and powerful arrangement. Then it was the time of "Rewind", which is the third track on the album: from the moving intro to the mindblowing outro, passing through the memorable bass performance... another great song!

So, I first listened to the entire album knowing that it could possibly have more surprises for my ears. But I couldn't imagine how much this supposition was going to be confirmed. "Third Law" features absurd drum patterns and a very rigid performance by everyone. I think it's one of the less beautiful songs on the album, but it's still very positive. "The Flood" and "Triumphant" are simply two masterpieces in a row, the first being a kind of sick power ballad with sounds which appear to be quite new for the band, the second being a sort of epic and energetic march, featuring some of the most amazing grooves of the whole Leprous' discography, and a great chorus. "Within My Fence" closes the first half of the album in a positive, yet not perfect way, since it's probably the less convincing song on the album, though featuring a great drum performance, but no great ideas here.

The second half of the album features more complex and extended songs: four of them in a row are not shorter than six and a half minutes, while the last returns to the four minutes standard. "Red" is an unique journey made of impossible-to-follow grooves and unconventional solutions for the band sound. The instrumental section is just out of my words' reach. "Slave" is an absurdly tragic and obscure song, with a great chorus and a great synergy between guitars and keyboards: together they form an atmosphere worth of the sickest horror movie (but still not fit for it: this song would totally stole the attention from the film). "Moon" features a very interesting electric piano line, together with a great drum performance. It probably goes on too long with the same structures, but they are so good that the overall impression can be nothing but positive. "Down" marks one of the band's highlights, with an incredibly catchy chorus and other powerful grooves used in the intro and in other sections. Some drum fills are totally mindblowing here! The album ends with the graceful "Lower": a tender keyboard intro is blown away by a powerful chorus, just to return a while later in a totally moving arrangement. The special edition also features the bonus track "Pixel", which is ok but frankly nothing special at all.

Wholly considered, "The Congregation" can surely be mentioned as one of this year's best releases, and in my opinion it will be hard for whoever will try to surpass Leprous to manage doing it... once again!

9/10 (five stars, considering his ranking in my personal Top 2015 album list)

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