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Kimaera is an atmospheric death metal act from Lebanon that formed in 2000. With two prior full length releases under their belt, Kimaera returns with their third effort, “The Harbinger of Doom”. Melding the harrowing gothic beauty of Draconian with the doom death style of early My Dying Bride and adding touches of melodic death metal, Kimaera has begun to tap into something special here, but either they aren’t aware of it just yet or they just aren’t able to fully capitalize on it.

While “The Harbinger of Doom” is solid in terms of execution, the songwriting is somewhat shaky at times. Kimaera basically bounces between atmospheric gothic sections, trudging doom death and some groove-laden melodic death metal, but never really manages to fully intermingle any of those styles. My main problem with the songwriting is how quickly they shift between the heavy sections and the melodic sections with nary a sign of its coming. Yes, there are a few things that try to bridge the gap between these pieces, notably the orchestrations and violin bits, but it still seems choppy and disjointed.

The guitars and rhythm section remain fairly heavy throughout the entire release, the keyboards and violin accoutrements endlessly fill in the space to the rear of the mix, except for a few of the more grove heavy sections, like during the middle of “The Script of Sorrow”. There is barely a single inch of free space on this album. The orchestral keyboards sound similar to the symphonic drenched gothic scene, with overarching choral synths floating throughout. Going further with the symphonic gothic scene, Kimaera throws in copious amounts of higher register female vocals to provide a stark contrast to the deep and throaty shouts of the vocalist Jean-Pierre Haddad. I guess with the band’s Lebanese heritage, I was expecting a little more in the way of Middle Eastern themes. There are a few standout sections, like the

The album’s title track showcases the band’s strengths and weaknesses in one fell swoop. The track starts off with an intense double bass rhythm and some proficient and fast trem picking that eventually builds into a somewhat thrashy, groove-laden riff which is catchy as hell. This chunky riff just all of the sudden drops off the map and you’re presented with what I call “atmospheric dead space”; which, aside from some rollicking drums, is basically a slow, plodding and far from powerfully gripping chunk of orchestral nothingness. “Blood of Saints” and “The Script of Sorrow” also follow suit with some engaging sections followed by some atmospheric floundering fronted by some violin lines. The band is pretty damn good at making groove-laden riffs with gothic undertones and engaging melodic death metal with atmospheric elements, so I don’t see why they feel the need to descend into these slow paced, mind-numbingly boring segments.

There are some solid moments on “The Harbinger of Doom”, it’s just that these aforementioned dead spaces are pretty frequent. You’d be hard pressed to pick a standout track because nothing really stands out further than the rest. This is almost an hour of solid gothic and atmospheric melodic death metal, but there are other bands out there doing this style and doing it well. Check this out if you’re a fan of early My Dying Bride or Draconian. Perhaps with their next album Kimaera can put all the pieces together, but for now we’ll settle on calling this slightly above average.

- TheStormIRide, metal-archives.com