If memory serves me correctly, I first heard Epicurean back in 2003 at Milwaukee Metalfest when someone (probably one of the members) was handing out promos/demos to every person who happened to walk past him/them. I don’t seem to own that demo anymore (probably tossed it out or gave it to a friend), but back earlier in the year me and a few friends were bored, wanted to be drunk and decided to go check the band out when they were playing at a local venue. I remember within my drunken hysteria I found myself really enjoying these guys and decided to buy their album. At first the merch girl wanted $15, so I told her no fucking way. After the bands set she said, ‘How about $10.’ I said sure. Haggling a price is thee only way, my friends.
Anywho, Epicurean is a Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA based band, which formed back in 2001, released their debut album, ‘V.II R.VI’ in 2003 and followed it up with this album, ‘A Consequence of Design’ in 2006, although two years later Metal Blade Records signed the band and they re-released/re-remastered this album with two additional songs.
Epicurean plays a fairly standard version of modern melodic death metal although what makes them a bit different from the average band out there is that they have a keyboardist in the band whose input is almost constant within their brand of Melodeath music. I’ve seen some people say these keyboard symphonies sound like late 90’s Dimmu Borgir, but that’s pushing it a bit as the keyboards in Epicurean are merely just there for backing ambiance and very rarely do they take the center stage. Nevertheless they are a cool little addition and they really do serve to make the music more interesting.
Speaking of interest it seems guitarists Jared Mills and John Major are quite good at their instruments and you’ll find plenty of cool solos and catchy riffs spread out through this album. The bands weakest link however is their vocalist John Laramy who doesn’t growl or scream like the traditional Melodeath front man, but rather he sounds more like he should be fronting a metalcore band. Generally I find metalcore vocalists to be annoying, thus I can’t really say too much about John’s voice on this album. He also throws in some cleanly sung parts too, which sound alright, but you can tell there was a ridiculous amount of studio touch up done on them after he recorded them. Meh.
Of course I can somewhat look past lackluster vocalists if the music remains great the whole way through and frankly it does. Problem is this album is to fucking long! Get this, a sixty three minute Melodeath album. Ugh. I can honestly say getting the whole way through this album and remaining interested is not an easy task even if there are some cool songs present. It’s just too much Melodeath in one sitting. I mean, maybe if you’re favorite genre is Melodeath and you really have a thing for Melodeath with keyboards, then maybe, maybe you’ll thoroughly enjoy this sucker, but I just don’t know.
I do hope Epicurean is working on a new album since this release is technically already four years old and I’m sure if they want to expand their crowd they really need to hit the studio soon before they are forgotten. At any rate, you know your tastes, so check this album out if it sounds like something you’d enjoy.
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