Once upon a time there was a member called Neurotripsicks, who was here for a brief time, during which he roundly insulted everyone and acted loftily towards those he did not insult. He of course did not last (whether he was banned or ****ed off of his own accord I don't know) but before he left he did recommend an album here, and so I guess I should really give it a whirl. So I will.
Title: Back to Times of Spendor
Artiste: Disillusioned
Genre: Melodic Death/Progressive Metal
Familiarity: Zero; for a long time I thought this band was called And the Mirror Cracked, which would have been an interesting if perhaps unwise choice for a band name. It is, in fact, the title of the opening track. And here it is.
1. And the mirror cracked: Vocal's a bit rough, music's not bad. Bit confused. Vocal harmonies are great though. Do they use two vocalists, a “clean” and “unclean” one, as some bands do? Not according to what I read: there's only one vocalist, and that's a guy who goes by the name of Vurtox. He also does keys, guitars, bass and writes the songs. Hmm. His baby, then. Good instrumental passage there in the middle, percussion is very effective, then it gets a bit more towards the progressive side of things. Interesting. Vocal is now totally changed, completely understandable. Prefer this obviously. Still considering at this point what colour this track will be, edging between Green and Orange... it's Green.
2. Fall: Meh, didn't think much of this. Pretty standard fare really.
3. Alone I stand in fires: Teh promise of the opening track has not been duplicated. This is ok, but just ok.
4. Back to times of splendor: Oh dear. This is fourteen minutes long! And it's not the longest either. But it starts off promisingly with cello and violin then picks up into a sort of power metal groove, so you know, maybe there is hope. Okay, this is fairly bitchin'. Goes through a whole lot of changes, as you would expect,and overall very satisfying sound and a pretty damn good song. Most importantly, for a track of such length it never seemed to drag, which is often a problem for me. Mind you, there's a seventeen-minuter to go yet! But looking good.
5. A day by the lake: Great atmospheric intro, builds really well, the perfect shift in tempo and feel after that epic. If this is an instrumental I'll be happy, as it seems to want to be one. Lasts less than five minutes and we're half of the way through now, so ... no. There are the vocals, but at least they're “clean”, and actually not unwelcome. Yeah, I really like this.
6. Sleep of restless hours: And now we're into the real epic. Nice three-minute instrumental intro, which leaves us with fourteen minutes yet to go when the vocals come in, and this time they're “unclean”, which is a disappointment and does not work as well as on the other tracks. Oh, at eleven minutes there is total silence, now I think a soft organ is coming through? Low bass, slowly rising. Interesting. Comes back with a pretty powerful instrumental closer. Yeah, liked that.
End result: It was a good album; I'm not so sure why Neurowotsit got so excited about it. It certainly wasn't bad but I don't see it rewriting the history of prog metal or whatever the hell he was on about. Decent, competent album.
So, Love or Hate? In his memory, I'm prepared to give it a
Love.