Sadly, this is the final release by this great band – and what
a farewell it is. They’ve managed to one-up every other
black metal band with this release,
Prometheus captures the best of their previous works while
making progressions in style, technicality and ferocity. The
production is great, showcasing all the musical elements. I
wasn’t aware before of how good a drummer Trym is, his
playing is unbelievable, blasting away into emptiness. As
usual the guitar playing is amazing straying from brutal
black/death metal riffage to some prog/jazz elements. Wow!
Brutality and melody intertwined with symphonic guitar
orchestrations equally perplexing and entrancing, what a
fitting end to a brilliant career. All hail Emperor! – Greg Manz
Tag: Greg Manz
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Emperor – Prometheus
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Perdition – Nothing Else Remains
Perdition is a band that hails from Toronto. Now I’m not
really all that aware of how much this band is representative
of the Toronto Goth/industrial scene but if we are to believe
the bio and press kit that accompanied this release then
they are apparently redefining it. Realistically Perdition can
only lay claim to being a very mediocre goth/metal/EBM
hybrid, ruling ruthlessly over maybe their apartment block at
the very best.
Over the years I’ve heard too many Goth bands to
remember and the one thing I’ve learnt is that vocals make
or break this kind of music. The female vocalist is touted as
having taken vocal lessons (apparently opera training too).
Well I’ll tell ya her teachers were very kind to encourage her
to be a singer – kind to her but not to us. For the most part
her vocals are the weakest part of this release. The lead
vocalist is alright – he delivers an earnest performance while
hitting enough notes to make it passable. I hate to harp on
one thing but the female vocalist damn near ruins every
song she sings on except maybe the song, “Narrow Eyes,”
which musically is a nice little EBM-ish number, which if the
vocals were better could do well in clubs.
I could go on and on about what’s wrong with this CD,
things like line noise at the end of songs, clunky drum
programming, a cheesy metal guitar sound, some truly
useless re-mixes and on and on and on…
Despite all these negatives there are a few songs that I find
myself going back to. First off there is, “Sorry,” which is a
mid tempo Gothic rock tune with a good serpentine baseline
and catchy chorus’ topped off with a crunchy ending.
Next up is “Empty Promises”. It starts with a bludgeoning
metal intro, then slides into Gothic metal dirge territory,
which just builds and builds until – alas, she sings some
backing bits. Oh well, I still like this song. Lastly there’s the
best remix on the CD of the song, “I’m not the one,” this is a
neat electro version of the original reminding me of mid-era
Skinny Puppy. In summation, if you were to rate this CD by
the percentage of good songs to bad it would be a 2.5 out of
10, which is somewhat unfair, as it doesn’t represent this
release as a whole – but it would be tempting to rate it that
way. I guess nothing else remains to be said, sigh… – Greg Manz -
Dark Throne – Plaguewielder
The thing I love about this band is that you always pretty
much know what you’re getting into, brutally raw in your
face black metal. Their latest release, Plaguewielder, is no
exception to this rule, delivering exactly what you’d
expect. The production is a little better than usual, with the
drumming a lot clearer and technically executed. These
guys really know how to deliver a down and dirty black n’
roll groove. You could almost say this is beer drinking
music. My favorite song has got to be “Sin Origin”,
sounding a lot like Bathory in a beer swilling stupor with
the lyric, “entertaining Satan on an wet electric stage”.
Yah man, cheers to that. This stuff is great! So break out
a six pack and throw on Plagueweilder. – Greg Manz
