Here is an innovative band that suffers from the one thing that so many fall prey to; they try to be too cool for their own good. Forming a unique sound that they call psychedelic black metal, the music created is something that gets under your skin and ravishes your nerve endings while at the same time tries to lull you with their diabolical use of instrumentation like violin and flute. The combination is a mystical blend that works quite well, for the most part. While I enjoyed this album, there is enough wrong with it that you might be put off just as easy as you are entranced.
With only five songs and clocking in at over an hour of music, this disc is one where they try and give each tune ample space but in all cases the excess is just that. Excess! The music at times is magical but in every song without exception, it goes on and on way too long. This would have been a very good disc if the repetitious nature would have been eliminated.
The beginning of the disc "God" with its use of violin and ambient bass behind it is a captivating moment that sets a gothic tone right away. The problem starts when it drags on and on until the second half where they turn it up a notch for some of the best moments on the album. This seems to be a theme throughout the disc as the songs seem to be split into sections that have a cut and paste quality to the continuity of the music. Almost like they had some ideas and threw them into a hat and pulled them out and put them together that way. There are some really great moments on here but they get lost or do not carry through for a complete song.
The other thing that bothered me is the vocals. The male singer called Mister Curse, sounds like what I would picture Renfield from the Dracula story sounding like. The female vocals from Katheryne, Queen of the Ghosts are just blah.
There are a lot of innovation and cool ideas on this album. I would like to see what they do in the future for sure but this disc is such a mixed bag that I found myself growing weary of most of it. When it is good it is excellent but those moments are too far and few between.
Track listing:
1. God
2. Female
3. Male
4. Earth and Matter
5. Microcosm
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