Act I: Spring 02. Scene I: A Slow Vertigo... 03. Scene II: Sophrosyne
Act II: Summer 04. Scene I: Utopia 05. Scene II: Húbris 06. Transe H.L.2
Act III: Autumn 07. Scene I: Genesis 08. Scene II: Dystopia
Act IV: Winter 09. Scene I: Nemesis 10. Scene II: ...The Harsh Verdict 11. Epilogos
Dear France; whatever foul chemicals you've been putting into your children's milk, don't stop. Maybe it's a movement, or maybe that entire nation has just been going on constant psychotropic binges when the rest of us weren't paying attention, but either way, there's been some pretty wacky metal coming out of that country...recently? Or have they always had this "avantgarde" thing down with such astonishing creativity? Well, chalk up another one, because Akphaezya is another nifty little psychotic curiosity.
This is such a strange album, in order to describe the over all sound, one would need to go through each track individually, as The Tragedy Of Nerak is an album that incorporates a mind blowing amount of different sounds. For brevity sake, let's just say this; it's got melodeath, thrash, symphonic, traditional folk instruments, piano passages, proggy riffs, quirky Stolen Babies-esque moments, a touch or two of raspy black metal bits as well as a whole bunch of other shit that would take far, far too long to list here. On top of that, every sort of feeling is gone through as well; haunting sorrowful passages, angry metal riffs, bouncing humor, etc, etc.
Oddly enough, Akphaezya's greatest strength is also their downfall. It's too eclectic. Variation is something that can always be appreciated, obviously, but it can be a little too much when it frequently sounds like you're listening to a different band from song-to-song (or even segment-to-segment). Those out there who generally don't really have the attention span to sit through an album in it's entirety will probably love how different each song sounds from one another. Those who appreciate solidarity and consistency in their music might just find this more than a bit irritating.
This is an album that a review can do no justice to. Appropriately describing this in a succinct manner is impossible without doing a play-by-play, in which case you might as well just go ahead and listen to it...Which you probably should be doing anyways.