The Elysian Fields
Suffering G.O.D. Almighty
5.2
It was nearly 10 years ago that I checked out The Elysian Fields first cd, Adelain, which came out on the now defunct, Unisound records. Adelain, was a great album, very nicely layered melodic death metal. Their second release We.. The Enlightened, came out on Wicked World/Earache,and was just about as good as Adelain.The Elysian Fields have been a band that has sparked my interest in the past. Unfortunately, on this newest effort, Suffering G.O.D Almighty, I find myself very frustrated.
Suffering G.O.D Almighty scared me right off the bat with the keyboard work. For some reason, with a lot of Greek bands, they seem to really like to play techno sounding synth phrases. What is annoying about this is the fact that I thought I was listening to a different band when I started this. Unfortunately, that is not the case. After about a 4 minute intro split between two tracks, the heaviness comes in. The keyboard intro didn't really seem to fit at all and it totally killed the opening buzz of the album.
There are hints of darkwave and techno all over. The 4th song, "Ravished With Thee Light", is probably the best song on here, and also the closest song to any of the tracks on Adelain. The keyboard parts on this track are more traditional grand piano style which fits the style of The Elysian Fields much better.
Another beef I have, is the fact that the good key parts have been done before. On the three The Elysian Fields efforts I have heard, it seems like the key parts always are in the same mode. One could say, The Elysian Fields are sticking to their style, but on the other hand, they have been around 10 plus years, they should have progressed at some point from where they started.
One of the things I have always liked about The Elysian Fields have been the guitar parts. The guitar parts on Suffering G.O.D Almighty are good, very simplistic, but good. I would compare the guitar playing to bands like Gates of Ishtar, Dissection, and maybe even older At The Gates.
Overall, this would be a much better album minus about 80% of the keyboard parts. If you can somehow find The Elysian Fields first cd, Adelain, check it out. If not, We... The Enlightened is a good substitute. This is a fair album but hardly the work this band is capable of.
