There have been plenty of times where whenever I sat down to listen to a metal band that’s primarily progressive, I find myself being pulled out of the experience as the band in question tends to make their style far too flashy for the sake of putting on a show, and not if it sounds great when all brought together as a unit. Thus, whenever an act of the style manages to accomplish it, I’m almost always left bewildered and that’s precisely the case with Endolith and their powerfully retrospective sophomore album.

A concept album is anything we’re unaccustomed to, but I firmly believe they don’t happen enough. I, for one, can’t get enough of the idea as having a central theme and story to your work allows for a completely new level of connectivity with the material on top of already being quite gripping. Hopefully, anyway, and it’s with Endolith that their second full-length album is the kind of epic the likes of which I haven’t seen since the last Allegaeon. With a theme that connects the ending of the age of dinosaurs to the oddly similar circumstances in our current time, it’s with “Chicxulub – The Fossil Record” that this Norwegian act shows us exactly what they’re made of. Not a single track from what’s offered here could be considered weak in the slightest as Endolith has done no less than go all out with “Chicxulub” to make it epic on a scale that spans the eras (thematically, at least) and tenacity in everything from the vocals to the instrumentation that really captures the spirit of this act wondrously to where the sheer intensity to somber piano works we see the scope that this band manages to encompass. I’d normally expect an immensely experienced act to pull off something like “Chicxulub”, but it’s somehow that this band has done it on their second full-length, and I truly couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Truth be told, this album took a little bit of digestion for me to really get, but after taking a few bites out of it there was very little that I didn’t find enjoyable. This is an extremely organic record from start to finish as Endolith doesn’t shy away one bit from exploring new terrain in order to make “Chicxulub – The Fossil Record” the intoxicating monster it’s become, and it really paid off.

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