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I
wanted to like this. I really really wanted to like
this. But I didn’t. Obviously a lot of care and love
went into Zauberer and the artwork that adorns
this release is actually pretty cool. Unfortunately,
while listening to it I felt rather confused and more
often disoriented. I am not sure what is exactly going
on here. I can hear the riffs, the monotonous vocal
melodies heading everywhere and I can notice loads of
ideas but none of them seem to gel very well. The fact
that the songs are tediously long (the shortest clocks
at 6:39) and go from passage to passage doesn’t help as
there seems to be little musical connection in between
them.
Scribes of
Fire remind me of two bands; Fates Warning and Psychotic Waltz.
I am not a fan of neither. They both have a loyal almost
cult-like following and they both play progressive rock with
songs that vary in mood quite often and in quality even more
often. Scribes of Fire is trying to do the same but is only
accomplishing one. Their tunes are bipolar and even though the
playing itself is rather simplistic the arrangements are very
ambitious and have the obvious goal to tell a story. If the
story is as appealing as the music, it’s gotta be boring and too
long.
What Scribes
of Fire is missing is a way to engage the listener. In their
quest to make well-arranged sophisticated rock this band is
missing its target by miles. The constant changes lose the
listener and the few glimmers of quality are shattered by
disappointing new ideas. With every song we get good musical
seconds which are quickly superceded by another melody, another
tempo and more lines from the non-stop vocalizations of Ben
Abelson. There is not cohesive songwriting in Zauberer,
just loose ideas jammed by more ideas. Cool artwork though.
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