Review by chrisc7249 on April 13, 2022.

This little known band from Chicago, Illinois blessed the world with a great album a couple years back before their untimely demise, as the band split not too long after the release of the record under investigation here. The first thing that jumps out to me is their hometown of Illinois, a place with a very rich, bustling technical death metal scene, sporting incredible up and coming bands such as Wounds, Roman Ring and Warforged. Surely this band would be a standout as well with such a great crop of bands around then. Well, after their debut a few years prior (which I still have not heard) the gang got together to record their second output, A Parting Current, a fresh album with a lot of atmosphere and artistic value that continues to this day to be one of my personal favorites and an album that should live on, at least as a building block for the future in the grand world of progressive/technical death metal…

Yes, once again we are back to discussing technical death metal, and for this particular band, we have very atmospheric, inventive and "airy" tech death not too far off from the opuses released by bigger names such as Rivers Of Nihil, Fallujah and Burial In The Sky. It's nowhere near as technically proficient as something from "The Zenith Passage", "Exocrine" or the likes but is still technical enough to pass as tech death. The riffs are pretty heavy and fragmented, the solos have neoclassical flair and the drumming is tight as fuck. There's also some jazzier parts occasionally, though I wouldn't say this is nearly as jazzy as something like Atheist.

The vocals are pretty basic, usually rumbling in the low range with some occasional highs, but it's nothing exciting. At the very least, the vocals aren't overly "clean" growls, they have a bit of bite and some rage to them which is a welcome change in a genre where almost every vocalist sounds bland and uninspired. There's some cleans, primarily on the song 'Radial Static' and I really, really do like them. Sometimes, especially in death metal, clean vocals can be a complete miss as only some people can do good cleans (as opposed to growls, where I believe anyone and everyone has the capability to do them properly). But this vocalist has good cleans, doesn't use them too much, and when they are used, they aid the band in creating full, complete songs built off of a lot of emotion.

The musicianship is more than qualified, as everyone has their fair share of flashiness. By all means, it's a true to the bone technical death metal album - it's pretty damn complex at times. Yet, never too complex. It's not as menacing in terms of structure as you might believe it to be, it's fairly tame for the genre, but it helps create quality, memorable songs. While I do believe a couple of the songs towards the back end of the album are a little forgettable, A Parting Current has a nice flow and has genuinely good, revisit worthy songs. The first five are all great, the best of the album, no complaints with any of them. The title track is also a great song that just has an unnecessarily long, boring intro. 'The Borders Between', 'Dim Lights' and 'This Phantom Offering' make a good trio, followed by the forgettable 'Bastard' and an equally forgettable instrumental. The final track isn't as epic as I would like it to be, but it's a good song nonetheless.

And with that, they were gone. Yes, as I waited and waited to see what would happen next for the band and where they'd go, but, sometime last year, Caecus decided to call it quits and their status on Metal Archives was changed to the dreadful "split-up." Ah, shit. Of course, not every band can stay together for long. It's a shame they called it quits so early in such a bright career, but we'll just have to wait and see now if a reunion is made and they ever continue. For now, this is their swansong. And it's fucking great. Caecus may have never achieved tech death immortality, but they tossed in a great gem waiting for it to be unearthed by avid fans of the genre. Give this one a listen, for sure.

FFO: Fallujah, Rivers Of Nihil, Burial In The Sky

Favorite song: 'Radial Static'

Rating: 9 out of 10