Arcane Dimension
In Ecstasy & Sorrow
4.6
Synopsis:
American Goth Metal, amateurish but with bright spots...
Review:
Why? You have a relatively good singer, moderate chops, and enough money to at least create a decent demo or whatever this is. But it’s such soulless, plodding average music. Where is the spark? The fire? The anger and fury? Is it a simple question of needing a real band to fill out the sound? Maybe. The rhythm section is abysmally hack and dull, without question, but it’s not just that. The subject matter of these songs deserves the kind of pain and rage missing from any of the performances here. While the guitars are good, the whole project just suffers from a lack of emotional honesty.
In a genre of music where screaming your guts bloody is norm, even if you CAN get away with clean singing, why the fuck would you? I mean ALL the time? Someone ought to have come in while the woman was recording her vocal tracks and, when anything particularly emotional was happening in the lyrics raked her ankles with a garden ho. Christ, lady, GET INTO IT! Lose the control and show us your fucking asshole by way of your larynx. This is METAL, not the Lilith Fair.
Do they still do the Lilith Fair?
The songwriting wanders from excruciatingly dull to almost pretty cool. There are some ideas I would love to have seen built on sprinkled throughout this disc. But for the most part it’s almost too pedestrian to even bother with. I am chalking some of this up to a lack of musicians to fill out the group’s two-person roster. A real drummer with a full time bassist who got each other the way a rhythm section is supposed to would do wonders in the excitement and creativity department, I am willing to bet. I understand this is gothic and even at its best would not tread too close to the kind of music I consider honest to shit Heavy Metal, but I have heard enough bands in this style to know that there is much that needs to be done to get this band up to speed with its peers. And I hear bits and pieces that make me think it could really add to its chosen niche, and make a very good metal band, generally speaking.
The production is piss poor. The vocals sometimes squelch, they are mixed so high. The drums are canned, the bass is subdued into irrelevance and the keys are incongruous when they don’t have to be. The guitars are done well enough, although they lack any real punch. The rest of the instruments don’t fit the mood they set at all.
If it seems like I spent a lot of space on a somewhat “eh” band, you may be right, but I feel like this band is looking for itself, for a sound that takes it someplace better, and goddamnit, there are enough bright spots - in the singer’s voice and the guitarist’s riffing and chording - that I just hate to see this one fall by the wayside without at least trying to light a fire under them. There is more in this pair of assholes than a poor to mediocre debut album. I suggest they put together a real band, reach down deep and produce the fury they seem to stifle on this record. It would take some work, but I would sure like to hear what happens. As it stands right now this is not a record I recommend.
