Time of Cholera
Collapse of the Forsaken
6.2
I’ll give credit where credit is due: for a relatively unknown band on a minor label, Time Of Cholera displays an impressive amount of skill and musical diversity. They also have a penchant for mixing and matching a large variety of metallic sub-genres that will likely garner a great deal of attention from some people, while simultaneously putting quite a few others off.
Gothenburg, black metal, hardcore, tech-metal, metalcore, and ambient, Isis-like instrumental passages – the Collapse Of The Forsaken EP makes use of all these styles and more. The idea of mashing all these different approaches to song-writing together is an interesting one, and could foresee-ably yield some impressive results, but there’s a fatal flaw in the execution of this album which, for the most part, prevents that from happening.
With so many different elements at play, Time Of Cholera isn’t able to lock down and focus on any one in particular, and the overall sound and cohesiveness of the group suffers as a result. The Gothenburg melodies aren’t on par with Dark Tranquility or In Flames, the breakdowns don’t carry the same amount of seething crunch as those of The Classic Struggle, and the ambient breaks and the two instrumentals (“White Sand” and “Fully Collapsed (Collapsed and Expanded”) lack the genuine dreamlike qualities of the aforementioned Isis or Opeth. Time Of Cholera is able to play each genre with a degree of adequacy that shows off an obvious wealth of talent, but there’s no flare or hook in any of the songs that really etches them into your memory and compels you to give them a second listen. The length of the tunes – ranging from four minutes to an overbearing seven-and-a-half – doesn’t help matters, either.
I almost hate to say this, because I enjoy when bands branch out and make an effort at combining different styles in order to come up with something new and interesting, but I think that Time Of Cholera’s time would be better spent by buckling down around one or two main genres of interest and going from there.
