One Master
Forsaking a Dead World
6.2
Finally, a band that comprehends what so many other bands seem to lose sight of in extreme metal these days--you can’t release an album that sounds like a reworking of one song over and over again. The trick is though, neither can a band create a song with a meaningful impact if all it amounts to is a revolving door of unconnected and dissimilar riffs. The trick is to find your niche between the two, and for anything negative I might say towards Forsaking a Dead World, One Master seems to be completely comfortable and assured with each riff they play.
Rather than have the material bleed together, One Master comprehends the concept of variation: utilizing tension, contrast, and dynamics. “Dark Tower” opens the album with a heavily classic-influenced form of morose black metal that finds itself somewhere between Gorgoroth and Dissection. “Chill of the Grave” is a less intense, rollicking, mid paced effort utilizing plenty of melodic chord shifts to create a contemplative statement that slowly builds anticipation to a feverish climax in the opening of “Unholy Grimness” which musters its power by utilizing both its relatively faster speed and it’s raw, aggressive punch. The other serious problem they avoid is the ubiquitous issue that so many artists simply reorganize their influences into an odd amalgam of riffs that might as well have been written by their betters. Forsaking a Dead World is not what I would call a groundbreaking or revolutionary original idea; the band makes an important effort towards sidestepping the issue of sounding like little more than a deflated version of their influences, though at the same time they are in every respect a completely genre specific band.
The only problem that mires an otherwise solid album is what is best described as a less than awe-inspiring production. Whichever guitarist is coming out of my left speaker needs to learn how to mix tones properly, because the sound contains nothing more than a whiney, brittle sounding treble frequency that has absolutely no body to it. I understand the bass and mid frequencies aren’t as grim, but sometimes concessions need to be made in order to make the tone slightly more palatable, or at the very least more discernable, than a faintly buzzing lawnmower or vacuum cleaner. At least their other guitarist doesn’t sound quite as much like compressed static, but add to this, the vocals buried somewhere far behind the muffled tone of the drums, the distant muddy blur of what I’m assuming is a bass guitar, and we now have on our hands what we can call a slightly grating production.
While Forsaking a Dead World probably won’t end up on your must buy list for the month, I do recommend fans of any style of black metal to take the time to check out what is not only an enjoyable, but a completely competent release that met and surpassed my expectations with little effort.
