Thirdmoon: Terrarum Exuviae (2018)

Once again, I was sucked in by an album cover.  But really, how could you not be?  That thing is awesome.  I know I say it a lot, but this may be one of my favorite album covers in a long time.  I really mean it.  You know, until the next one. 

Now, seeing an album cover like that, I kind of thought we might be looking at some sort of pagan black metal, or some kind of black metal at least.  What I was not expecting was melodeath in the vein of earlier Soilwork and In Flames.  Before those bands went to crap.  I suppose a better comparison would be latter-day Dark Tranquillity meshed with Insomnium.  But instead of being some late copycat, trying to revive a style that has gone dormant, Thirdmoon dates back to the mid 1990's, when melodeath was all the rage.  The Austrian band has gone through a couple of hiatuses and this is their first album since 2007.

This album is a good lesson in listening to something all the way through before formulating an opinion.  Honestly, the first half is a little bit bland, doing very little to separate Thirdmoon from any other melodeath band.  The earlier comparison to Dark Tranquillity and Insomnium is apt, but the first half of the album has neither the hooks of the former or the doomy melodicism of the latter.  But it all comes together in the second half, starting with the terrific "Fragile Identity".  It continues in that vein for the rest of the release, culminating in the powerfully poignant outro "Is this the End?" featuring a voiceover talking about how society has forgotten how to truly live, focusing too much on how we will make a living from an early age.

It is a shame the first half of this release is less than impressive.  This could have been a terrific album if the first five songs were more interesting.  So we settle for half of a great album.  I suppose that will have to do.