English translation:

10 years after the release of their second studio album Citadel, the Australians release a remastering of it through Season of Mist. With a deluxe vinyl edition, the highly refined sound is noticeable from the first note. Let’s agree that listening to NeO is both a sonic and emotional journey that has progressed exponentially over the years, where they have learned to dose both the energy and the content that each song carries. Notwithstanding the above, Citadel is an album that includes everything in one go; like a nuclear bomb of mathematical information that for some reason collides in surprisingly fabulous harmonics.  I will start from back to front because Devour Me, Colossus (Part II): Contortions It is simply subliminal; a 2:27 minute instrumental that seems to be a melancholic dance with darkness, the dramatic and almost sensual tinge in the most vampire style traps you in agony but you need to continue listening to it for hours just to leave you with the same feeling as when a kiss It cools on the lips.

And if we talk about the instrumental songs of the album, the enigmatic beginning of Painters of the Tempest (Part I): Wyrmholes It delivers that sensation of a storm brewing through the window, an open door to another dimension, and it’s curious how it manages to catch you in just seconds and then explode into Painters of the Tempest (Part II): Triptych Lux, and this is where I can say that they did not skimp on resources since with 16 and a half minutes they put each of the ideas that were navigating in their composer’s head. Sometimes less is more, but this is not the case. The sound of Tim’s violin shines neatly in the middle of the composition, providing calm that ends up merging with the chaos and growls of Xen, while the rhythmic passages are linked with the melodic ones in a seductive play between the instruments. A listening pleasure from start to finish.

Painters of the Tempest (Part III): Reveries from the Stained Glass Womb is the third of the instrumental on the album that, like agonizing and persuasive poetry, returns us to the hypnotic state of trance between the sound and the sensory stimuli that each chord provokes. Calm before the storm, as Pyrrhic bursts forth thunderously with deep growlings and polyrhythmic drums that thunderously boom at maximum acceleration. Despair, prayer, the underworld and the decay of one’s soul is just a brushstroke of what the lyrics bring into the subtext of basically the entire NeO full-length.

And when you think you’ve heard it all, get into the game Devour Me, Colossus (Part I): Blackholes with 12:37 minutes (yes, these guys let their imagination flow without time limits), the long-awaited arrival at the Citadel after going through hell, dying but hopeful. That place where transcendence occurs. “The stars steal my eyes and the sun sears my mind” reads part of the lyrics of this song that has it all: high complexity in its structure, accelerated riffs and captivating melodic passages; an amalgamation of information that is completed with the highly complex bass lines and the play of voices that make NeO a unique band in its field.

In general, this remastering brings with it two things; The first of them is a sound upgrade that for lovers of analogy will be an auditory magnificence and second; A complex album emerges, which although it is not so easy to digest right away, has that peculiarity of masterpieces of staying stuck in your mind never to let go.