GAEREA - Limbo - [2020] - Album Review by NPH - Rate 10/10

GAEREA
COUNTRY: PORTUGAL
GENRE: BLACK METAL
ALBUM TITLE: LIMBO : 2020
LABEL: SEASON OF MIST


[Artwork and Logo Eliran Kantor (Testament, Iced Earth, Sodom)]

"LIMBO" Track-list
1. To Ain (11:15)
2. Null (6:01)
3. Glare (7:16)
4. Conspiranoia (9:15)
5. Urge (4:50)
6. Mare (13:11)
Total playing time: 51:48

[Release Date: 2020-07-24]

PRE-ORDER NOW:
https://shop.season-of-mist.com/list/gaerea-limbo


RECORDING LINEUP:
Unknown

PRODUCTION/RECORDING:
Studio/recording: Demigod Recordings (PT)
Mix/Master: Miguel Tereso



GAEREA - Limbo - 2020 - Season Of Mist
Genre: Cathartic Black Metal

"(...) Magnificent azure
A lantern uncovers the road
Spectrum of a banshee wrapped in disguise
We have just found a new paradise
This time without any mistakes
Saturation muffled by the pain
Been there with them all, through the land of nothing (...)" GAEREA | Song: Mare | Album: Limbo |

THE BAND AND THE ALBUM:

Cathartic black metal sensation band GAEREA are about to release their second and most profound and challenging creation to the date, the tormenting new album entitled "Limbo" overcomes all that this vortex community has created before and proving with it that GAEREA is a band to keep a close eye on and to follow very carefully, a band that quickly caught worldwide attention, respected both by media and extreme metal adepts! The band had an absolute meteoric ascension, achieved uniquely by own merit and the combination individual members talents and geniality. The reasons for the band success came not only from of their strong visual aesthetics but at most by the whole GAEREA concept... a combination of both powerful and emotional music with matching video creations, still, if that wasn't enough their strong theatrical/atmospheric presentations on each of their live performances shall leave no one indifferent to such obscure disturbing arts.

GAEREA are a mysterious black metal quintet from Portugal that have emerged upon this world in the beginning of the year 2016. At fall of the same year the band has already released their self-titled debut EP (released by Everlasting Spew Records) which was an authentic mind-blowing piece of twisted black metal art, a sick creation that left no one indifferent to such tormenting dark splendour. The very positive reactions came from all over the globe!
Two years later the band has unleashed upon this tortured world their debut full-length entitled "Unsettling Whispers" (Transcending Obscurity Records). This album has become the consolidation of what the band has been paved through the previous years, reaching a notorious integrity and solid identity and in this way defining a brilliant path ahead. GAEREA have received the best reviews and made themselves noticed all over the extreme metal universe, this has allowed them to tour with bands such as Jupiterean, Numenorean across Europe and also do a headlining tour over China. GAEREA have performed in great festivals such as SWR Barroselas (POR), Throne Fest (BEL), Frantic Fest (ITA), among many others!

For those who will have their first contact with the band, I can only say that they are among the best new black metal bands out there, GAEREA shall please adepts of bands such as MGLA, Uada, Mephorash among others.

Now signed with one of the best European record labels, Season of Mist, the band will soon release "Limbo" which is one of the best albums I personally heard of its genre in a long, long time!
Words cannot describe the magnitude of this amazing piece of blackest metal art, so intense, so decadent, so profound... a disturbing and an absolute mind-twisting masterpiece! GAEREA took a huge step forwards from the predecessor album to this new one, reaching a level of maturity that the most of the bands take ages to acquire. GAEREA have now reach a solid identity, something that flows naturally on each of their organic musical creations.
"Limbo" is a "Nightmarish" emotional journey across an abyss of pain, suffering and despair... watch our decadent human society as it falls deep into a void of numbness, an abyss of endless torment! The new album becomes in all its length a vivid experience to ones senses that shall awaken ones conscience to what our fragile world has become.


ALBUM DETAILS:
"Limbo" is one of the best metal albums ever to emerge from Portuguese lands, an elaborate work of extreme metal excellence that was recorded, mixed and mastered over Demigod Recordings in Portugal by the genius hands of Miguel Tereso. The final work is beyond amazing, I think that GAEREA couldn't pick a better option for this masterpiece creation as their music breathes, flows and gets its own life though this world-class and elite level final product result. "Limbo" has a perfect symbiosis of all musical elements, sounding organic and never over polished, yet and always with the best musical definition and own identity! A studio/producer to keep in mind for bands worldwide!

GAEREA lyrics follow the line of the previous releases, keeping the essence of the main band thematic and concept. "Limbo" is an emotional journey beneath the blackened skies of modern society, a place where our lives are highly controlled and formatted by higher powers. We are nothing on this vortex community, just another lost soul with predestined destiny, no control over our path. As disturbing as it may be, the only way to escape from this void is to end up our pitiful lives.
This sinister world has no real values, no real life, this is just a huge vortex of nothingness. Today's society has made things so vain that you can't even be entirely free to live on your own! This is the world of GAEREA, something they explore through their elaborate and eloquent lyricism!

GAEREA vocals are one of the most important parts of their music as they express at best the power of the strongest and deeper emotions like agony, despair, suffering, anguish, sorrow, disturbance, hatred, etc. The equilibrium between vociferations, guttural and whispered vocals give all the right dynamics and tension to the whole piece. GAEREA vocalist is a force of nature and has here a flawless performance, same can be felt on the band live shows with an intense visual experience!
The drums and guitars as the whole GAEREA sound has become even deeper and more intense than ever before, also intentionally rawer and faster than over previous works. The whole sound and atmosphere created by each track is explored to the maximum level of detail, carefully elaborated as all the masterpieces of pure Alchemy, a tormenting delight to ones ears and a true masterpiece of black metal art!

The album cover art has been done by Eliran Kantor who has created already fantastic works for bands such as Testament, Iced Earth, Sodom, among others. This time he has illustrated the whole "Limbo" concept in another amazing, yet disturbing painting, an art so vivid and full of meaning, giving you a glimpse of what the album is all about. A world of wondering formatted souls in a senseless void of emotions, a lifeless world of monotony! To awake from such a world (Limbo) is to give a meaning to your life and make it your own by stepping out of the pack and leaving those who are lost to this void way behind our backs!


TRACK-BY-TRACK:
With "Limbo" GAEREA took a great step forwards from the debut album "Unsettling Whispers", enhancing each of its elements into a grandiose emotional level, this is without a doubt a rawer and faster album where easily you can trace the bands very own identity, a notorious disturbing character both intense and obscure. "Limbo" shall leave a mark on their listeners who can't be indifferent to such abominable black metal creation. The more you listen to it, the more you get deeper into this void society and hollow existence of Man over such rotten universe!

"To Ain" introduces the listeners to this decaying world where we are all owned, just "Slaves of our own creation", victims of our own deeds which culminated on this void society we all live in, a wondering abyss from which we may never return.
This is in my opinion one of the best tracks ever created by the band, capable of reaching an emotional level that shall give you Goosebumps and shivers down your spine. A hymn of darkest splendour that combines the best elements that define GAEREA ever-growing sound, an authentic nightmarish vision of our existence in this world of hurt, pain and agony! I simply love the tension and heaviness that they put on this music.
The break in the middle of the song is beyond amazing as it slows everything down and makes you transcend for a while into a moment of clarity, simply something you need to listen and experience, this is such bliss among massive agonising darkness, moments like this make you go deeper into the bands world and music. After this amazing moment the band ravages your ears once again with such intentional torturing darkness, hitting you hard and with a voracious malice! Amazing!

"Null" quickly follows, this is a song that explores the vision of the undying martyrs, souls of another time which had the power of living their lives on their own, not a forced life that was programmed and predestined even before our birth! This is a song about defiance of common standards that teases you to escape from this senseless world!
"Null" is another fast instigating track with a really catchy melody, a song that will be in your ears since the very first listening. The level of intensity of each track is something that the band meticulously measures and masters like few this days, this song is a proof of that balance and extremity!

"Glare" is the next track and one of the fastest and most brutal songs of this whole nightmarish piece of black metal art! A both aggressive and vicious song full of pure dark adrenaline!
"Glare" is a frenetic journey across lands of false hopes and dreams, a place we may never escape from and may never see but a glimpse of light (life itself), something that seems so unreachable since we (Humanity) are meant to follow not lead!
"Glare" reveals a rawer and faster approach to GAEREA traditional sound, something that shall be a delight to all those who like their black metal both aggressive and brutal!

"Conspiranoia" comes next, a deeper dark and tormenting song that allows your already tortured ears to rest... but only for a while! A well balanced dark eerie track with some haunting chants that shall give you shivers and absorb your attention towards such sinister creation.
"Conspiranoia" makes you wonder why we live our lives so indifferent to what we might achieve. We should dare to explore more our own capacities and become something more than just a slave to this predestined monotony. This is without a doubt the point our lives have become these days over our modern societies. Living our life with inertia is like living our life with a blindfold, we could all reach much further if only we could see through our own our eyes and explore the world around us!

"Urge" is the track that follows and it deals with this vain and senseless world we all live in, a world of sensual emptiness, formatted by higher standards where you cannot live your own life in our own way unless you make a stand urgently, we should all use this will to achieve our own goals!
With "Urge", GAEREA reveal a whole new "death metal'ish" approach that gives this song particularly and the whole album in general a daring diversity within extreme metal sound proving with it that GAEREA musical horizons go way beyond any black metal boundaries. With it they create a whole new experience that shall please any extreme metal adepts.
This is another track that that gets out of the pack and proves that this band has still allot to offer to their listeners, hard to believe that this is only their 2nd album! Such level of maturity and meticulous musical measures elevate each of GAEREA creations!

"Mare" is the last and longest track of such transcendental masterpiece; this is a nightmarish vision of what our lives have become on today's modern societies.
Far on the deep horizon our eyes can already visualize the long-promised freedom. To reach this goal in life seem not that far away, but what in a way seems to be at your grasp may yet be so far away once you finally try to reach for it.
It's always an hard task to crawl from the deepest abyss to embrace this so called paradise, the utopia of a promised land! ... shall we ever reach it?... or shall we all die trying!
This is a true musical nightmare of eerie whispers and doomed chants, a hymn to all human damnation in a world without sense. As on the whole album the balance of heaviness and slower but painful moments give this whole piece a dose of intensity and depth that puts this band on top of what is being done in extreme metal this days!
To finish this inglorious requiem with a golden key we have a unsettling instrumental outro!

THE CONCLUSION:
GAEREA new album "Limbo" consolidates the band status as one of the most promising black metal bands out there. “Limbo” is an album so intense, emotional and vivid that hardly you will find words strong enough to describe it without diminishing this grandiose and defiant black metal creation. GAEREA new album will twist peoples mind and awaken their darkest emotions, teasing them to act on this rotten and senseless modern society, provoking them to take a stand and walk by their own shoes and set their own path in life, leading it as their own, assuring you that this life is yours not others!
I dare to say that "Limbo" is probably the best Portuguese metal album ever created to the date and one of the best and most challenging black metal albums I heard in the last years, becoming without a doubt in this way, one of the best offers of its genre for 2020! 
"Limbo" is a defiant creation brought upon this world by an alliance Portuguese brilliant and creative minds who found a way to crack the monotony on an already saturated extreme metal universe! GAEREA have forged an obscure tormenting masterpiece, an album both rawer and faster than any of its predecessors.
Close your eyes and enjoy this dark vivid experience upon this void society! Be sure to set your emotions free because I assure you, this will not be a pleasant ride! Do not to fall too deep and be sure to wake up before it's too late and you become consumed by this deep abyss!


RüPä - NeKronos Promotion HELL

RATE: 10/10


VIDEOS:

"NULL" : Videoclip : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ooMJ1jUxw



"To Ain" : Videoclip : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBdg_h92JM4



MORE INFORMATION ON GAEREA AT:
Facebook Page: HTTPS://WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/GAEREA/
INSTAGRAM: HTTP: https://www.instagram.com/gaerea_/
Youtube Channel: [ LINK ]
BANDCAMP Site: HTTP://WWW.GAEREA.BANDCAMP.COM/

Contact: AGENT.GAEREA@GMAIL.COM