This latest release is 45 minutes long and you really never get bored keeping on listening to the 10 songs of this CD. I already played it many times in a row and it's always the same pleasure. So what's the secret of Ancient Rites? The style is really specific and personal: you recognize the band from the first notes of this CD. Moreover, the intro "Crusade" is nothing but a reminder of the top song of Ancient Rites' CD entitled Fatherland (it's already ten years old now... Wow!). And it's absolutely impossible to put the band in the classical metal styles. It's not death metal, even less black metal. There are maybe some old school influences but you just cannot recognize any other reference in Ancient Rites' music: Ancient Rites is Ancient Rites and this is it!

There's always this very sharp lead guitar playing the kind of melodies that you just never can get out of your head. The music of Ancient Rites in general is really something smart in my opinion since it is just perfectly balanced between wild parts and almost atmospheric ones. It can take you to the dream domain at some point and then take you back to reality with pretty fast parts. But it's not an unpleasant feeling. "Ypres" is probably the song of this album that best shows this property of Ancient Rites' music. It's a really wonderful song with a keyboard interlude in its middle accompanied by choirs and then a fantastic guitar solo that makes you take off. And then back again in aggressive metal. It's probably the best song of this album.

Indeed, in every song, verses are most of the time really fast with growling vocals, guitar riffs followed by the double bass drumming. And choruses can be very much softer.

"Cheruscan" is also very impressive. I wonder how it is possible to make such catchy melodies, once played by the lead guitar and then by the keyboard. Just amazing, really! And I'm not the kind who writes this in each review: you can check this out.

"Brabantia" is the last song of this CD and it is just appropriate: it really sounds like the conclusion of this battle of ancient times. However, one can not really say Rubicon is a concept album since musically speaking, each song is made the same way with this mixing of epic parts and brutality. "Epic" would really be the word to describe Ancient Rites music. With their so unusual vocals (and a personal way of growling, let's say...), Ancient Rites really creates a majestic and unique atmosphere that you'll find nowhere else. That you do like their music or not is not really the point: Ancient Rites deserves to exist because they create something really fresh and new with a quality you can hardly find nowadays.

written by Hubert Chapuis

Playing time: 45:52