Empyrean is an extreme metal six-piece. The Australians play a kind of death metal that get a lot of the inputs from black metal. It's easy to hear that Empyrean is fond of bands such as Emperor and Cradle Of Filth. These influences are mostly noticeable in the keyboard and vocals.

Vocalist James Hill often copy how Dani from Cradle Of Filth sings. I don't find this very captivating. It's a lot better when he goes for a more common kind of death metal vocals. The blend of the two does provide diversity, but the Dani-like vocals do get somewhat annoying.

The keyboard is another issue. It takes up a lot of space in the music. Now and then it tends to reduce the guitars to the anonymous. On a positive note it's nice that keyboard is not just a copy of how the abovementioned bands sound, although the similarities are there. The keyboard does add a lot of mood to the music so all in all it does more good to the songs than it spoils.

The music is not that fast, but more of a mid-paced kind. There's a good amount of variation in what the six Australians are doing. However, it would be good if the death metal parts got some more room in the songs. No doubt that there are some alright ideas on Quietus, but this reviewer don't like that the keyboard and vocals are as domineering as they are. This of course could be a result of how the music is mixed. The production is overall good and vigorous, but a more unbiased mix would have been nice.

I have my doubt as to how interesting Quietus is to fans of death metal, but if you like Emperor and Cradle Of Filth then Quietus isn't bad after all.