Laburinthos – Augoeides (2012)

Delivering a very unique and melancholic release, today we have Avantgarde Music’s latest signing Laburinthos and their debut release “Augoeides”. Featuring five very unique sounding tracks, this band crafts a blend of Gothic Rock with some excellent Dark Wave influences that they eloquently call Labyrinthine BlueWave. With very emotive vocals and a depressive aura, this band reminds us to the likes of The 3rd and the Mortal, Yearning and those types of band’s from the late 90’s.

Opening with the very dramatic “The Great Brothel of Mankind”, the mood is set quite well with such a rich and complex piece. The lush keyboards greatly adorn the well-paced bass guitar and the guitar work. The vocals are very theatrical and fit the music quite well. With even more powerful keyboards, “Crucified Among My Loves” delivers a very interesting tempo changing track. This song reminded us of the initial use of keyboards in Death/Doom Metal from the early 90’s by the Dutch bands, like The Gathering, Etherial Winds, etc.

The playful “The Emotion of Stone is Hidden in Diving Sigh” reminds us of the ethereal angelic vocals of the likes of Casket and such. As you can probably tell, we are quite pleased with how this release reminded us of bands we haven’t heard in years, that all feature very unique and interesting styles, some for the own time, and some of them even for now. The guitar work on “Jesus or Christ” is some of our favorite of this release and it nicely complements this very mellow song.

Closing in a high note with the lush “God Wept in Tunguska”, Laburinthos has managed to release and album that is very mellow and pleasant sounding. The band features tons of elements from our favorite bands from ‘back in the day (the 90’s)’ and still creates their own unique brand of melancholy. We totally recommend this album for all the fans of highly emotional and atmospheric music that are looking for something unique and different.

Release: September 23rd, 2012

Genre: Dark Wave / Gothic Rock

Country: Romania