Review by Raphaël on December 31, 2023.

I had the privilege to listen to this album in the last few days, and let me tell you, it’s been a fun ride. The first thing I said to myself when I finished listening the first time is how have I never heard of this band? Being a fan of progressive metal and melodic death metal, one would think I would be all over this band. Better late than ever as they say.

To begin this review, let’s talk about the band. Chaos Over Cosmos is essentially the work of one man from Poland, multi-instrumentalist Rafał Bowman. And adding to the lineup is a rotation of a few vocalists from around the world. This time on vocals, he is joined by KC Lyon from the US. On A Dream If Ever There Was One, Rafał continues to blow our minds with his virtuosity, especially his insane guitar playing abilities. If they ever release a new rock band game and somehow it was featuring a song from them, it would easily dethrone through the Fire and Flames as the most difficult song to play!

Now for the album, it starts with the instrumental track 'Continuum'. It is often the case, especially with power and melodic death metal, that the intro track feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the album. What I mean by that is that you usually get some kind of symphonic or electronic instrumental for the first track and then we get in the actual music for the rest the album. Well, 'Continuum' is not that kind of intro. The song starts with a few seconds of vocal sampling of a woman reciting numbers and then immediately hits you with an insanely fast, one-minute, shredding solo. This means that in the first seconds of the album you get a pretty good idea of what’s to come. And what’s to come is 40 minutes of sci-fi inspired, progressive power/melodeath with face melting solos that could be described as a real “Shredaradise” if you will. 'Fire-eater' is the first real, complete track and was also chosen as the single for the album. The song starts with superfast drums accompanied by a fairly traditional melodic death metal riff. It continues for like one minute and builds up until the vocals starts. KC Lyon has a nice screamed, relatively high-pitched growl; think about Jari Mäenpää or Alexi Laihov from Wintersun and Children Of Bodom respectively. It’s pretty simple, Bowman shines on every song. His guitar playing is phenomenal, dare I say, John Petrucci level of virtuosity. His solos are so fast and technical, they can give you vertigo and yet are still super musical. It’s almost as if they are telling a story alongside the vocals.

On track three, 'Navigating By Moonlight', vocals are provided by KC’s brother, Keaton Lyon. His screams make me think more of the 2000’s American metalcore sound. But, at about midway of the song, he uses more of a type of shouted clean vocals that gives a big emotional impact and gives me chills every time. If you liked those kinds of vocals, don’t worry, later in the album, KC offers the same kind of emotional vocals, so I’d say that vocally, the two brothers are pretty on par with each other. As for the rest of the song, it’s a mix of prog and power metal-ish melodic death metal. When the solos begin, it always hit me right in the feels. That says a lot about the masterful songwriting, that it can be so technical but still is musical enough that it is also emotionally touching. On Ebb and Flow[ers], which is the last real/complete track, Rafał goes complete prog. This song features a heavier use of synths and is the longest on the album. The only complaint I have is that towards the middle part, it transitions to soft vocals and low-fy, atmospheric synths. It’s not that these parts are bad per se, it’s just that it happens more than once and it’s handled a bit awkwardly. So basically, for the rest of the song, you get lightning-fast solos, then it cuts immediately to the soft part. The same pattern repeats until the end. It’s a shame because the heavier parts are really freaking good! Closing the album is 'Melatonin', synth instrumental with serious 80s vibes. I could truly see it playing in a Stranger Things episode, it would fit perfectly.

So, I’ll end on this note: this album is relatively short (40 something minutes), but is jampacked with some of the best guitar solo works I heard in quite some time. The runtime is perfect because I’m not sure I would have been able to digest many minutes more of this wonderful music. It’s the perfect sized portion. I cannot find anything truly bad, the album as a whole feels fluid (with some minor exceptions). The guitars sound beautiful, very high up in the mix and crystal clear. It’s evident that it’s the instrument they wanted to show off and, oh boy, did they succeeded! So, if you’re searching for a proggy, spacey and super melodic metal record, really give this album and all of the band’s discography, as a matter of fact, a listen.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Felix on May 22, 2019.

Maybe the guys of Swordmaster anticipated that their career would be pretty short and so they decided to call already their debut Postmortem Tales. It's a pity that they transformed into a useless combo called Deathstar, because they actually had the momentum on their side. A contract with Osmose was the aim of thousands of underground musicians at that time, but the Swedish formation was not able to take advantage of this situation. Why? Well, their song-writing capabilities did not outshine the skills of their competitors, to express it politely. Some parts of the debut remain interchangeable and very generic. The raw and simple riffs are not bad, and the level of aggression is absolutely acceptable, but there are not many songs with memorable sections. Especially the unobtrusive choruses do not score with catchy lines. Thus, the majority of the songs just passes by.

Of course, exceptions confirm the rule. "Metallic Devastation" is a nice mix of blast beats driven sequences, a gloomy bridge, further fast parts and swirling riffs. The song lives up to its name, because it cannot be denied that it offers a devastating aura. As far as I remember, it was the band's contribution to an Osmose sampler called "World Domination", where Swordmaster met other label comrades such as Impaled Nazarane, Absu, Immortal or Driller Killer. Guess it was no coincidence that the French company exactly chose this number for its label sampler. But this does not mean that "Metallic Devastation" constitutes the only good song here. Numbers like the straight and uncompromising title track please me as well. It is therefore a pity that the band was not able to create some individual trademarks. As much as I regret it, there is no specific reason to throw the here reviewed disc into the CD player as long as one has 15 or 20 further thrash records. Aggravating the situation, one can call the whole material homogeneous, but also somewhat monotonous. Really fiery, intensive sequences remain rare, but the mid-part of "Claws of Death" awakens the dead.

Yes, you are right. I am not really able to forget their feeble-minded Deathstar experiment and therefore I am probably biased. So, in all fairness, the songs are not bad, the singer conveys an adequate mix of anger, hysteria and wickedness and the protagonists avoid major flaws successfully. But more than 20 years after the publication, this kind of blackened thrash metal is not enough to be still relevant in a scene which has grown rapidly during the last two decades. In addition, I cannot ignore that the production also does not provide a unique selling point. Hi-fi dogmatists will cry - I think it's okay, even though the bass guitar is sidelined, and the entire mix has a noisy touch. Summing up, the overall impression remains pretty ambivalent - buy the album on special offer or leave it be and create your own post mortem tales.

Rating: 6.8 out of 10