Weekly album: Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

Akercocke -Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

2005 / Progressive Black/Death metal

1. Verdelet

2. Seduced

3. Shelter from the Sand

4. Eyes of the Dawn

5. Abbadonna, Dying in the Sun

6. Words That Go Unspoken

7. Intractable

8. Seraphs and Silence

9. The Penance

10. Lex Talionis

btcarey: Akercocke was a completely foreign band to me before being exposed to them for this Weekly Album. This left me with little, to no expectations for how the music would sound or what genre I was preparing for. Those of you familiar with Akercocke, can imagine my surprise after spinning their record of the first time. Coming out of it I was a bit disoriented to say the least. To the untrained ear Akercocke’s style can sound like a junction of different genres mashed together in one record. But after you understand the flow of the music and know what to expect Akercocke’s “Words that go Unspoken, Deeds that go Undone” shines as an exceptional album.

When researching Akercocke, most sources defined them as progressive blackened death metal. Personally, I think this branding is incredibly misleading (remember, I haven’t heard any of Akercocke’s material besides “Words that go Unspoken, Deeds that go Undone”). While there are few black metal moments throughout the album (one of my favorites being on the track “The Penance”), the album in its entirety is a split between death metal and progressive metal. If I had to compare them to anything, I would say they take a large amount of influence from Opeth (which is totally fine with me). Personally, the proggy parts are my favorite aspect of the album, especially on the final track “Lex Talionis”. It’s just a perfect, eerie yet beautiful conclusion to the album. Even though the awesome prog stuff somewhat shadows the heavier parts, there is some QUALITY DEATH METAL on this record (It even delves into the technical death realm on a few tracks).

Overall this is a great album. Check it out. Buy it. Steal it. Frame it. Whatever you have to do. This is a must for death metal and Opeth fans.

Favorite Song: Eyes of the Dawn

tp5170: Mixing different genres can result in something rather interesting if done right, and despite not doing a PERFECT job, I think that Akercocke was on the right track with the album ‘Words That Go Unspoken, Deed That Go Undone’.

The album is simply put a combination of progressive, death- and black metal elements, and the shear amount of variety displayed on this album always amazes me. It is also noteworthy that none of the elements is used as a gimmick implemented badly or as a trick that would only appear in half of the tracks or something like that, but instead most of the tracks actually have like two or three sides to them and time is given equally to the different genres they tried to mix. 

Of course not all of the different elements are equal or superb in quality; for example there are moments that simply end up feeling like an overly complicated mess and some of the death metal parts are pretty lackluster, but these things don’t bother me too much, because the general sound on the album is surprisingly enjoyable even with its flaws.

Out of Akercocke’s albums, this one has always struck me as the most engaging, and overall I’d say that the album is quite solid and that you can clearly hear that there were several interesting ideas used in composition of the album.

Kattroll: Based on the album cover, my first guess would be that the album would consist of some atmospheric jazz rather than metal music. The name of album is also a monster of its own kind, because in my opinion, the name should be something short and concise.

The music itself was a pleasant surprise: I've been told that I've been sort of picky about music lately, but I could actually say that I like this album, even though I really don't listen to this sort of stuff. The album doesn't depress and I'd be glad to listen to this diverse album. Usually, I steer clear of progressive elements, but on this album their use is quite moderate and well done. The same goes to the clean vocal parts. I could almost say that this album is the best unknown weekly album we've had to date. A huge plus for the beautiful outro.