Review by Stellarium on April 4, 2024.

Divine Empire are easily most remembered as being the band that numerous ex-members of Malevolent Creation formed during their hiatus or permanent departure from the group. I was a little hesitant at first due to the drama surrounding "that lyric" written by Jason Blachowicz during his MC days, but there appears to be no additional examples of such belligerence and this band as far as I can see doesn't particularly intake in any such unacceptable use of slurs.

The short, pointless intro (I seriously wish bands that felt the need to do this gave something - anything of substance to these openers.) segues into "Hidden Hatred", which punches my ticket with the aggression of Thor's Hammer. Hyper-fast old school death metal with gutturals that will appeal to fans of Deicide and of course, Malevolent Creation. The guitars ebb and flow between riff, after riff, after riff. A micro-solo slams the track well and truly shut, and I am comfortable calling this song one of the best death metal openers that I am aware of.

Like many death metal albums cut from this cloth, the material is very meat-and-potatoes, but the band have more than enough tricks in their bags to mix it up well enough (as explored later in the review). Unfortunately, there are times when the band utilise further genre tropes that they frankly could have done with avoiding. Samples used in songs are more than welcome when done sparingly and correctly, but the intro to "Silent Carnage" is so cheesy that I found myself actually wincing, which is never a good thing. It just felt like throwing something random for the sake of us being able to hear the violence and profanity as a clean, coherent plot device. I can't identify the sample, but it just annoys me deeply and I'd be tempted to edit it out of the song and listen to that version. As I have picked this up on CD though, I'm stuck with "skip or put up with".

One thing I need to further discuss is the excellent production. It's rare to hear the instruments all popping in and out at the correct times to promote their duties, but when there's a drum fill, it's given extra oomph to stand out a mile away as per("Induced Expulsion. I know that this is the general idea of correct music engineering, but it fails to surprise me to this very day how many people don't get it one hundred per cent correct - or just don't mix the songs to their own unique merits and USPs.

Derek Roddy's drum work is an absolute pleasure to listen to, being super pronounced and deep, amplified even more with a good set of Headphones. Jon Soar's guitar work is also top notch and his is a name that should be mentioned a lot more when discussing these things on various YouTube channels dedicated to death metal.

As for Blachowicz? I may have made my point at the beginning but I cannot deny that he is a talented vocalist and bassist. His gutturals on this release are memorable and stand right up there with the previously mentioned work from Glen Benton's Deicide.

There is a level of dynamicity that the experience of the members can draw from to prevent any stagnancy from occurring. The band may use blast beats a lot, but they don't rely on them to enforce the vision of brutality that they are so hellbent on delivering. The bass licks that occur on "Witness to Terror" are utilised to great effect, as they kick in just before all hell breaks loose with the frenetic vocal chaos and guitar solo - further imagining a scene of utter, utter dereliction.

The Summary

Divine Empire's first album continues where Malevolent Creation left off after the divide. One could argue that this album is better than a good chunk of MC's catalogue, and if given the same name would rank highly in the overall discography. I feel that the group didn't reach the same level of renown that they could have been afforded, and perhaps if a few bad decisions weren't made that the project would be a little higher on the pedestal of 90s death metal. There is very little wrong with this album, and if that stupid intro and sample were removed, I'd have this down as a very, very strong must-have.

As it stands, this is a great album for all death metal fans to listen to, and I'd go as far as to recommend it to newcomers to the genre.

Sell me this Album

No chance, I'm keeping my copy. Seriously though:

- Hidden Hatred: After the fuckery that is the thirty seconds of nothing, this is a great statement of intent with a couple of frantic micro-solos.
- Witness to Terror: Just listen to the breakdown and chaos that ensues. It's death metal's "Black Spell of Destruction"
- Induced Expulsion: The instruments come together in sweet harmony, with a drum sound and fills that are simply blissful to experience.

Rating: 8.2 out of 10

Review by Stellarium on April 4, 2024.

Divine Empire are easily most remembered as being the band that numerous ex-members of Malevolent Creation formed during their hiatus or permanent departure from the group. I was a little hesitant at first due to the drama surrounding "that lyric" written by Jason Blachowicz during his MC days, but there appears to be no additional examples of such belligerence and this band as far as I can see doesn't particularly intake in any such unacceptable use of slurs.

The short, pointless intro (I seriously wish bands that felt the need to do this gave something - anything of substance to these openers.) segues into "Hidden Hatred", which punches my ticket with the aggression of Thor's Hammer. Hyper-fast old school death metal with gutturals that will appeal to fans of Deicide and of course, Malevolent Creation. The guitars ebb and flow between riff, after riff, after riff. A micro-solo slams the track well and truly shut, and I am comfortable calling this song one of the best death metal openers that I am aware of.

Like many death metal albums cut from this cloth, the material is very meat-and-potatoes, but the band have more than enough tricks in their bags to mix it up well enough (as explored later in the review). Unfortunately, there are times when the band utilise further genre tropes that they frankly could have done with avoiding. Samples used in songs are more than welcome when done sparingly and correctly, but the intro to "Silent Carnage" is so cheesy that I found myself actually wincing, which is never a good thing. It just felt like throwing something random for the sake of us being able to hear the violence and profanity as a clean, coherent plot device. I can't identify the sample, but it just annoys me deeply and I'd be tempted to edit it out of the song and listen to that version. As I have picked this up on CD though, I'm stuck with "skip or put up with".

One thing I need to further discuss is the excellent production. It's rare to hear the instruments all popping in and out at the correct times to promote their duties, but when there's a drum fill, it's given extra oomph to stand out a mile away as per("Induced Expulsion. I know that this is the general idea of correct music engineering, but it fails to surprise me to this very day how many people don't get it one hundred per cent correct - or just don't mix the songs to their own unique merits and USPs.

Derek Roddy's drum work is an absolute pleasure to listen to, being super pronounced and deep, amplified even more with a good set of Headphones. Jon Soar's guitar work is also top notch and his is a name that should be mentioned a lot more when discussing these things on various YouTube channels dedicated to death metal.

As for Blachowicz? I may have made my point at the beginning but I cannot deny that he is a talented vocalist and bassist. His gutturals on this release are memorable and stand right up there with the previously mentioned work from Glen Benton's Deicide.

There is a level of dynamicity that the experience of the members can draw from to prevent any stagnancy from occurring. The band may use blast beats a lot, but they don't rely on them to enforce the vision of brutality that they are so hellbent on delivering. The bass licks that occur on "Witness to Terror" are utilised to great effect, as they kick in just before all hell breaks loose with the frenetic vocal chaos and guitar solo - further imagining a scene of utter, utter dereliction.

The Summary

Divine Empire's first album continues where Malevolent Creation left off after the divide. One could argue that this album is better than a good chunk of MC's catalogue, and if given the same name would rank highly in the overall discography. I feel that the group didn't reach the same level of renown that they could have been afforded, and perhaps if a few bad decisions weren't made that the project would be a little higher on the pedestal of 90s death metal. There is very little wrong with this album, and if that stupid intro and sample were removed, I'd have this down as a very, very strong must-have.

As it stands, this is a great album for all death metal fans to listen to, and I'd go as far as to recommend it to newcomers to the genre.

Sell me this Album

No chance, I'm keeping my copy. Seriously though:

- Hidden Hatred: After the fuckery that is the thirty seconds of nothing, this is a great statement of intent with a couple of frantic micro-solos.
- Witness to Terror: Just listen to the breakdown and chaos that ensues. It's death metal's "Black Spell of Destruction"
- Induced Expulsion: The instruments come together in sweet harmony, with a drum sound and fills that are simply blissful to experience.

Rating: 8.2 out of 10

Review by George on March 19, 2020.

Wonder, to me, is the single most powerful emotion a human can experience. The solitude of gazing into an endless sea of stars during a cold night is incomparable to anything else - it's a grand feeling of insignificance I never thought possible to even be captured in an artistic work, much less reproduced by one. I was proven wrong last year when I was first exposed to the Swedish band Atoma's 2012 debut. Skylight effortlessly drifts between the spheres of ambient rock and post-metal, carrying the listener far beyond our lonely planet and into the astral ocean.

Saying that the whole album evokes the grandeur of space is, however, quite misleading. The first three tracks still have majestic moments, but their core focus is death. It takes you to a chaotic scene, a barren, ravaged world where bombs rain from the sky and give rise to monolithic mushroom-clouds. All-consuming, sweeping destruction is given form by low death growls in Skylight's verses while the otherworldly, soaring choruses give a sense of the enormous scale of it all. This is everywhere. It tears the sky in half, it rends the earth below, and there's no escape.

The transition point between the earthbound and celestial sides of the album comes in track 4, 'Highway', with an incredibly executed classic post-rock crescendo. The song begins in a floating, ethereal state, with wandering basslines and atmospheric drums evoking an inspiring aimlessness, the same stargazing-induced wonder as I mentioned in the introduction. Then comes the blastoff, a combination of climactic guitar melodies and a powerful, commanding vocal delivery that brings Skylight to its emotional pinnacle before the spacier, calmer side of it begins.

And speaking of the vocals, 'Highway' is just of their exceptional use throughout the album. Nowadays I usually sigh when I see a non-instrumental post- album, since it's so rare for proper singing (as opposed to spoken word or samples) to appeal to me in the genre, but Atoma throw that particular expectation out the window. Ehsan's grim, fatalistic performance carries the foreboding 'Hole in the Sky' all on its own, sharply contrasting the guitar-driven nature of most of this album (and genre) while his elegant, vulnerable singing on 'Rainmen' combines with the ambient guitar melodies and ethereal keyboards to leave a paragon of melancholy in its wake.

The components of Skylight are always coming together to form a composite whole, but the band constantly varies which is taking center stage. Many of the more overtly post-rock tracks such as 'Resonance' are fully guitar-driven, while the peaceful yet melancholic 'Solaris' sees the synths take over for a few minutes to allow you to float far away from Earth. Distant radio communications remind of the beginning of the album and of the destruction going on down there, but this time it's from a distant perspective. It's a sorrowful and reflective yet incredibly serene piece of music and one of the more overt moments of introspection on the album. While the first three tracks plunge you into the midst of the Earth's destruction and ambient masterpieces such as 'Saturn & I' fly you to the stars, 'Solaris' really just lets you stop and think. You're safe up here, far from the dying husk of a world below. But what have you left behind?

It's this kind of inclusion that makes Skylight so special. A truly amazing album has to be an experience, not just a collection of songs, and Atoma provide a golden standard for that concept. While there's no set-in-stone story, the emotions you feel while listening range from terror to wonder to the aforementioned introspection and leave more than enough room to fill in the blanks yourself. It's a spiritual journey through the stars with the exact details left up to the imagination and the emotional potency of the music is nothing short of perfection.

The only complaint I can level at Skylight is really just more praise for the album and based solely off my own experience with it - it's so unique and otherworldly that no matter how hard I try I'm never able to find anything else like it, post-rock or metal. It leaves me hungering for a certain sound, an atmosphere that to my knowledge doesn't actually exist anywhere else. My last hope is the band's follow-up Nova, which was briefly on the horizon earlier this year but has been postponed, leaving me once again patiently awaiting more news about the future of this one-of-a-kind, visionary project.

To conclude, Atoma have crafted one of the most unique, most ambitious and most well-executed albums of all time. Skylight was love at first listen and in the year since then my affection for it has only grown ever stronger with each spin. As it stands today, there's only one score I can possibly give such a masterwork.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Review by George on March 19, 2020.

Wonder, to me, is the single most powerful emotion a human can experience. The solitude of gazing into an endless sea of stars during a cold night is incomparable to anything else - it's a grand feeling of insignificance I never thought possible to even be captured in an artistic work, much less reproduced by one. I was proven wrong last year when I was first exposed to the Swedish band Atoma's 2012 debut. Skylight effortlessly drifts between the spheres of ambient rock and post-metal, carrying the listener far beyond our lonely planet and into the astral ocean.

Saying that the whole album evokes the grandeur of space is, however, quite misleading. The first three tracks still have majestic moments, but their core focus is death. It takes you to a chaotic scene, a barren, ravaged world where bombs rain from the sky and give rise to monolithic mushroom-clouds. All-consuming, sweeping destruction is given form by low death growls in Skylight's verses while the otherworldly, soaring choruses give a sense of the enormous scale of it all. This is everywhere. It tears the sky in half, it rends the earth below, and there's no escape.

The transition point between the earthbound and celestial sides of the album comes in track 4, 'Highway', with an incredibly executed classic post-rock crescendo. The song begins in a floating, ethereal state, with wandering basslines and atmospheric drums evoking an inspiring aimlessness, the same stargazing-induced wonder as I mentioned in the introduction. Then comes the blastoff, a combination of climactic guitar melodies and a powerful, commanding vocal delivery that brings Skylight to its emotional pinnacle before the spacier, calmer side of it begins.

And speaking of the vocals, 'Highway' is just of their exceptional use throughout the album. Nowadays I usually sigh when I see a non-instrumental post- album, since it's so rare for proper singing (as opposed to spoken word or samples) to appeal to me in the genre, but Atoma throw that particular expectation out the window. Ehsan's grim, fatalistic performance carries the foreboding 'Hole in the Sky' all on its own, sharply contrasting the guitar-driven nature of most of this album (and genre) while his elegant, vulnerable singing on 'Rainmen' combines with the ambient guitar melodies and ethereal keyboards to leave a paragon of melancholy in its wake.

The components of Skylight are always coming together to form a composite whole, but the band constantly varies which is taking center stage. Many of the more overtly post-rock tracks such as 'Resonance' are fully guitar-driven, while the peaceful yet melancholic 'Solaris' sees the synths take over for a few minutes to allow you to float far away from Earth. Distant radio communications remind of the beginning of the album and of the destruction going on down there, but this time it's from a distant perspective. It's a sorrowful and reflective yet incredibly serene piece of music and one of the more overt moments of introspection on the album. While the first three tracks plunge you into the midst of the Earth's destruction and ambient masterpieces such as 'Saturn & I' fly you to the stars, 'Solaris' really just lets you stop and think. You're safe up here, far from the dying husk of a world below. But what have you left behind?

It's this kind of inclusion that makes Skylight so special. A truly amazing album has to be an experience, not just a collection of songs, and Atoma provide a golden standard for that concept. While there's no set-in-stone story, the emotions you feel while listening range from terror to wonder to the aforementioned introspection and leave more than enough room to fill in the blanks yourself. It's a spiritual journey through the stars with the exact details left up to the imagination and the emotional potency of the music is nothing short of perfection.

The only complaint I can level at Skylight is really just more praise for the album and based solely off my own experience with it - it's so unique and otherworldly that no matter how hard I try I'm never able to find anything else like it, post-rock or metal. It leaves me hungering for a certain sound, an atmosphere that to my knowledge doesn't actually exist anywhere else. My last hope is the band's follow-up Nova, which was briefly on the horizon earlier this year but has been postponed, leaving me once again patiently awaiting more news about the future of this one-of-a-kind, visionary project.

To conclude, Atoma have crafted one of the most unique, most ambitious and most well-executed albums of all time. Skylight was love at first listen and in the year since then my affection for it has only grown ever stronger with each spin. As it stands today, there's only one score I can possibly give such a masterwork.

Rating: 10 out of 10