Published: November 2014

Epitimia stuffed all they could in this album - saxophone, Blackgaze tones, male and female vocals, storytelling, dynamics, Neo-Classical and ECM-type of Jazz sounds, even Electronic music. This enormous mix didn’t fit into one hour so the band decided to divide their experimentations into two CDs, titled “Delusion” and “Illusion”, and named this synthesis “(Un)reality”.

It’s almost impossible for a B...

Published: August 21, 2014

Phew. This is ambitious. 2 Cds, almost 2 hours of ambient black metal contained in a very well packaged (Hypnotic Dirge’s best packaging to date) double gatefold digipack. Nicely done indeed, now if only the music was as striking.

Despite being around for 5 years and having three other full-length albums under their belt, this is my first time hearing Russia’s Epitimia (another word for ‘penance’) and they could no...

Published: August 18, 2014

In the last decade words like "Avantgarde", "Post" and "Shoegaze" have been increasingly linked to the Black Metal world. Obviously this invasion of band "alternative" to the classic lines created rifts within the ranks of listeners and most of the times he questioned his membership in the wake of music, as the component Black was very little evidence of this in some. The fact remains that, f...

Published: July 12, 2014

Double CD’s are a hard thing to tackle not only because the length is twice as long but because the artist often has a much broader, more complete vision of their project.  Like many Hypnotic Dirge artists before them, Epitima have attempted to experiment with black metal with many other non-metal genres such as trip hop, post rock, and electro.  As you can imagine, this is a huge endeavor especially when trying to make all thes...

Published: May 16, 2014

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*Google translation of Finnish review

Regeneration and testing of the boundaries is generally a good thing, but not necessarily always right. I have to say that I did not like at first glance would've identified Epitemian new album and double disc (Un) Reality, the same band of the Gringos than a few years ago a pretty good Faces of insanity, although it does of course also have the same elements. Unfortunately, the change has not been v...

Published: May 6, 2014

Russian trio Epitimia look like three hipsters so much you wouldn't believe, dressed mostly in white and shit; a manifesto of sorts that they don't give a fuck? A fashion statement? Trying to fit into the hipster world of intellectual black metal made by white-clothed people?

_(Un)reality_ is a very ambitious effort; you can give them -that-, at least. Both the hardworking Hypnotic Dirge Records and the band themselves apparen...

Published: May 1, 2014

A double album of no less than 112 minutes, well, thats gonna be a long stretch. And indeed, '(Un)Reality' by Epitimia is quite a long ride, unless you enjoy elevator or hotel lobby music. So incredibly boring is this light avant-garde progressive form of black metal delivered by these citizens of Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Kenny G. saxophone parts fly by left and right. The cure for insomnia is what Epitimia delivers. Pretenti...

Published: April 24, 2014

Today again begin with a short example. So write task: we live in St. Petersburg. In 2008, you will find a suitable partner to start a band. Your main constraints are the two genres - black metal and ambient. A year later, you may gain a third member, respectively. member, who is in charge of percussion and violin. Your set is complete and the music is progressively more advanced and sophisticated...

Published: April 2, 2014

The Russian avant-garde black metal epitimy I approached with skepticism, although such music I like, I was not fully convinced that it really is what I expect. I will not lie, my expectations were low and I was pleasantly surprised that my hands got so good album.

The entire double album actually has a length of nearly two hours. While it is true that I prefer albums that you can listen to in one go, b...

Published: March 23, 2014

It’s difficult to be creative when black metal is the court where you play and many have failed in their attempting to achieve any kind of relevance. However, when listening to the early tracks in “(Un)reality”, I totally reckoned Epitimia’s fourth album was somewhat special.

It’s true that a double album of ambient black metal seems little fun on paper, but calling “(Un)reality” just that hardly makes justice t...

Published: March 18, 2014

Surprising is to hear from Epitimia. For since the Russians about two years ago with Faces of Insanity published an album that although courage proved to experiment by post-rock, folk metal and depressive black metal at each other, let the but in the end in itself did not seem conclusive, one makes at (un) reality everything right now. All the more surprising, because you get here directly ...

Published: March 10, 2014

Where to start with this one? Well after the first somewhat baffling play it was a case of looking up more information on the band and I noted that this lot from St Petersburg in Russia contained both members of Depicting Abysm in their trio of players. Yes this was the band whose latest album ‘Immersion’ very recently got a complete and utter drubbing on this site, one that having heard once and just about made to the end of I...

Published: March 9, 2014

The joys of the Internet age have done many things, for better or worse.  Put one in the win category though for simple distribution access for smaller bands through sites like Bandcamp.  While foraging through the massive amounts of material there, occasionally you can find a real diamond in the rough.  Epitimia is the latest diamond discovered by this writer, a Russian black metal band that explores post-rock, ambient, electronics, and...

Published: March 9, 2014

In all honesty, I became hugely interested in Epitimia just from hearing the few taster tracks from this album on Hypnotic Dirge's Bandcamp page a few months back. With just those few tracks, and from the description of what was promised from this extremely ambitious double album, I knew something special was on its way here. I wasn't disappointed either, what we have here is something both special and unique, something whi...

Published: February 26, 2014

Coming to this, my first thought is its oppressive length. Two discs and about two hours. Of course, being me, I feel better about listening to an album in one sitting, rather than splitting it up. So, I found 2 free hours in which to sit and listen to this beast all at once. Let me just say, I am very impressed with this record. There are 18 tracks here and not a single ounce of filler. Everything has meaning, every...

Published: February 12, 2014

(Un)reality is a new double album from Russian black metal band Epitimia, their fourth full-length, although they have also released several splits and EPs with bands such as Gmork and Circle of Ghosts. This is the first I have heard of Epitimia, sent to me by Hypnotic Dirge Records after I wrote a glowing review of their previous release, No Stars, On...