Tidfall
Nucleus
7.3
So then, Zyklon came out with World ov Worms, and albums like it followed, with its mixture of Death & Black metal with electronica, it gained a fairly large audience. Tidfall started out on Samoth's (ex/Emperor, Zyklon etc...) label "Nocturnal Arts Productions", basically a pretty good Dimmu Borgir/later Emperor clone on their debut. With their second album they started mixing in death and electronic influences to their sound. With album three, Tidfall has more or less picked up where Zyklon left off before changing over to more a standard Death Metal sound on Aeon. Nucleus is more Black Metal-ish, and still pretty Borgir-inspired, but basically the same style we saw on such albums as World ov Worms or Death machine, early Fear Factory albums, stuff by Sirius and Limbonic Art also come to mind when I hear this album. Sorg (bass/vocals) reminds me quite a bit of a more Death-growling Shagrath, which by my reasoning isn't a bad thing as one thing that has never bothered me about Dimmu Borgir is the vocals. The production on the album is impeccable, everything from the razor sharp guitars to the fear factory-like electronic intro's to the pretty triggered sounding drums to the creepy machines-are-taking-over atmosphere... and of course, unless you have a very large subwoofer, you'll never even have to realize the bassist was there! The riffs are plentiful, the presentation is great; it's not the most original attempt at all, it's not even the best album of the style, but it is another good one, check this one out if you loved World ov Worms and were disappointed by Aeon, or hell, if you're a fan of old Fear Factory. I'll cut this brief by ending with this warning: If you don't like electronica at all, and are thinking about checking into this, my advice would be not to, because Tidfall, while very much an extreme metal band, uses the shit in liberal amounts. Favorite Tracks: Personally I like all of them, but Future Doom, Neo-Torment, Mercury Mesh & Psychotronica are my standouts. Enjoy.
