Album Review: Veil of Maya-Eclipse

Veil of Maya are amongst the wave of bands that are on Sumerian Records pushing the envelope of the deathcore genre. They are in the small percentage of bands that are anything special in the genre that is mostly frowned upon by the metal community. Eclipse advances Veil of Maya's sound even further and hammers home why are they one of the few standout deathcore acts.

Eclipse is a big progression from their last record (id). (id) was a great record that showed off Veil of Maya's technicality and knack for killer progressive riffing. Eclipse offers up similar pleasures, but improves on these elements substantially. The guitarwork has never been better and the music has never been more intricate or progressive. "The Glass Slide" is the biggest (and best) example of the two coming together. The riffing is very technical and catchy and it has this big, amazing synth line that accompanies the guitar perfectly. Lead single "Vicious Circles" also benefits from an extremely catchy synth line paired with some solid progressive riffs. Other songs like "Numerical Scheme" are just bilsteringly fast and heavy. Veil of Maya hasn't strayed completely from it's roots though. Tracks like "Divide Paths" and "Winter is Coming Soon" feature prominent (and very good) breakdowns that don't get old and don't feel forced at all. Besides the major improvement from a songwriting and instrumentation standpoint, the vocals have also improved. Brandon Butler has never sounded close to this good vocally in the past. His highs and lows have a lot more power behind them and he enunciates pretty well throughout the record. It's such a vast improvement that it almost sounds like a completely new vocalist.

Plain and simple, Eclipse kicks ass. It's more diverse, technical, progressive, catchy, and just flat-out stronger than any other of Veil of Maya's releases. I have to give Marc Okuabo and Brandon Butler major props for stepping their game up big time. Their guitarwork and vocalwork respectively has advanced greatly from (id) to now. Really the only problem with the record it's just too damn short (it clocks in at an extremely brief 28 minutes). If this record was longer, who knows what Veil of Maya could have pulled off. In just 28 minutes, they were able to make a memorable record that also happens to best their best yet. If they made an album that was 15-20 minutes longer, they could possibly be contending with their labelmates Born of Osiris for the crown of best deathcore band. Veil of Maya has again outdone themselves and the future is looking very bright for them.

4/5 Stars
Standout Tracks
1.The Glass Slide
2.Vicious Circles
3.Numerical Scheme