Ephel Duath has been, quite frankly, shit out of luck since 2004's Pain Necessary to Know. Line up troubles and label woes have plagued them since, with the band essentially stripping down to core member Davide Tiso after the somewhat underwhelming Through My Dog's Eyes. Thankfully he's pushed on, and recruited some heavyweights in the form of Karyn Crisis, Steve DiGiorgio and Marco Minnemann for their latest EP On Death and Cosmos.

Sadly it's not really a return to form and a jump back to the brilliance of The Painter's Palette or Pain Necessary to Know, instead a slightly... safe approach that picks up after Through My Dog's Eyes, keeping the relatively simple setup that it eschewed over the respective jazzy craziness and electronic madness of its predecessors. Black Prism drives this point home. It's a tad too basic and repetitive, however Raqia is slightly more subtle, with its muted jazzy intro and licks and Stardust Rain has some interesting moments, but by fuck this isn't what I've come to expect from the band that knocked out The Passage.

As mentioned the songs are comparatively "safe" sounding barely any noticeable change in dynamics of tempo, the production is a bit unpolished which isn't too much of an issues with the band's pared back approach but it'd be nice if it had a little more of a sheen to it. In all honesty the main problem is that Karyn Crisis just can't match former vocalist Luciano George Lorusso's maddening barks and yelps. She's very flat and one dimensionally aggressive, and frankly boring to listen to. With a line up that sports some of the most impressive musicians in metal today it's disheartening to hear that their combined output is straight up boring. Here's hoping the album is a bit more of a push in another direction as the one that Ephel Duath is trundling down is dry and barren.