This is probably going to be one of the best newcomer releases of the year! Paris based Atlantis Chronicles recently dropped their highly anticipated, debut full-length album, “Ten Miles Underwater”.

As we told you in the album preview, this is a concept album about the story of William Beebe, the first major undersea explorer of history. In 1934 he went down to a depth of 923 meters near the Nonsuch Island, inside a single-seater bathysphere mostly designed on his own. He explored the frightening and nevertheless fascinating flora and fauna of the oceans depths, immersed into a complete darkness. Because of the high pressure and claustrophobia William will start to lose his mental balance and to confuse reality and hallucinations.
 

Actually, musically speaking, the band delivers an insane and blasting mix of Death, Metalcore, and Progressive Metal, brought to you by five talented and creative musicians. Especially the two guitarists, Alex “Ash” Houngbo and Jérôme Blazquez. Together, they bring some incredible shredding, enthralling solos, and some absurdly crushing riffs and breakdowns. But you can also appreciate the remarkable musical inventiveness of their bassist Mikael Rumèbe and drummer Sydney Taieb. Also the intense vocals provided by singer Antoine Bibent.

The album starts off with the creepy intro “Enter The Bathysphere…” wich will immediatly drag you down into the deep insanity caused by the darkness of the oceanic abyss that will surround you for the entirety of the album. In fact, the following track “…And Embrace The Abyss” is a wild, furious song which will immediatly give you an idea of the band’s technical and creative capabilities. It serves as one of the fastest and most powerful songs of the album. After that we can enjoy the two singles already released by the band, “Echoes Of Silence” and “Thousand Carybdea”, both of which are amazingly perfect!

This magical and unpredictable musical adventure continues as the band brings us to discover the unbelievable creatures of the unexplored abyss with original tunes like “Homocen” and the title track “Ten Miles Underwater”. Song after song you’ll find a lot of heavy material in which the band reveals their ability to bring both catchy melodies and groovy passages. Every track features its own specific sound, which always strikes as majestic and impressive. The album is magnificently closed by an epic instrumental called “William Beebe”, which ends the concept with a soft and dramatic piano outro.

We can completely approve of this huge release from Coroner Records. It manages to avoid being repetitive and maintains a high level of quality from the beginning til the end. “Ten Miles Underwater” is a beautiful musical trip that will submerge your ears and mind. You just can’t miss it.

– MATTIA

Links: Facebook // Twitter // Merch