Review by Adam M on August 2, 2017.

Byzantine represents a nice foothold in the metal genre. They bring some strong thrash tendencies into a melting pot of other influences for an innovative offering. The music here has dynamics and energy. There are tons of more molten metal moments, but there are also portions where things slow down and become subtler. The intense variety of the album is what makes it so solid.

Similarly, the vocals alternate between harsher segments and those where cleans are used. The balance the band has between louds and softs is really welcome to behold and leads strengthens them as an outfit. These harsh moments do sometimes recall the likes of Meshuggah, though I must say I like this band even more than that one. Thankfully, they just put the thrash-laden aspects into their music and not the djent ones. This leads to songs that are punishing and varied. Verses of Violence features a little bit of everything and goes entirely acoustic at the end. This is a very compelling track. The surprising thing is that the album manages to stay interesting until the very end. The dynamics that are present definitely help things stay engrossing. There isn’t a moment where something interesting isn’t going on to help matters overall. This level of interest continues to stay relevant throughout the entire disc and is quite relevant.

The thrashy portions of the disc have a wonderful rollicking nature and the quieter moments have that ability to stick in the memory banks. The moments of melody are wonderful to behold and spruce up the proceedings immensely. Overall, The Cicada Tree is a very solid disc by the band and has all the elements to pack a huge punch and be very memorable. It seems to all come together for the band here and this is the time to worship this fact.  

Rating: 7.7 out of 10