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Man,
what the hell happened to Tiamat? Blame it all on evolution. To
some it spells continuous development in a guided but blind
search for something. To others it means abandoning a glorious
past and discarding former greatness in exchange for the warm
embracing of mediocrity. Guess, which one Tiamat chose…
There are
three kinds of Tiamat fans; those who love their satanic
material which was unleashed all the way through the already
paced and outside of BM parameters Clouds, those who
discovered them and abandoned them with the amazing Wildhoney,
and those who came after (from A Deeper Kind of Slumber
all the way to Prey), mostly embellished by their
embracing of Pink Floyd-esque ventures and eyeliner friendly
generic gothic rock. I belong to the second kind. I have
listened to all their albums and I can certainly find good songs
in all of them. The problem is, not since Wildhoney have
these Swedes delivered a totally consistent album. And with
Amanethes, the situation isn’t any different.
In the
aggression camp, once again Tiamat is pushing the pedal a
little harder. Just a little. Amanethes is all very
controlled, with the band doing its best to fit the
‘atmospheric goth rock’ tag quite precisely and doing a
decent job at it. The guitars are pretty blunt and simple, the
piano and organ work is quite moody but hardly memorable. Not
necessarily somber, but evocative of morbid moods and at the
mike Johan Edlund as usual going for a deep voice. He is a good
singer, his tone fits the goth rock quite well.
There is
also some nice layering in a few songs; where behind the
guitars, bass vocals and drums you can hear nuances, but these
are rarely perceptible and as a whole do not improve the songs.
I can see Amanethes rocking many goth rock parties,
lifting up the mood of a few suicidal teenagers. As long as they
don’t get to that song “Meliae” we are good. I mean what’s up
with that? It’s a Tiamat power ballad. Not a slow song.
Certainly, more Michael Bolton than Pink Floyd.
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