Review of Canaan - A Calling To Weakness

Well, this is not metal. I just don't understand how this shit finds an audience. I had a very good friend (shut up, I did) who just loved this shit. Fields of the Nephilim (?) was the one he always talked about, but he had quite a few gothish bands in his collection. And I would grill him as to how he could choke that shit down with a straight face. And as good a friend as he was, he never gave me a straight answer. So I am telling you, for real and straight up: I don't get this shit. How to review it, then? Well, I guess it's up to you to weigh my comments against your own experiences with goth and draw a conclusion, somehow. Perhaps write a minion opinion about this disc to give things some kind of balance. I can only tell you how it sounded to me, so good luck. First off, it sounds like it's supposed to put you in a certain frame of mind, but it's far too repetitive and bland to take me anywhere worth going. The music is slow and unexciting to the point of tedium. I can think of no context to put these songs in other than emotionally overdrawn 14 year old girls trying to write songs about despair. I never empathize with the music in any way. It's quiet, hollow, and the singer just mangles the cadence when he sings in English. When he sings in whatever language he is more familiar with, I can't tell if he crams the wrong words into the wrong spaces as badly, and that helps. But he still sounds like a very bad lounge singer to me. Sometimes things come off a bit like Meddle era Floyd, but never as compelling. The addition of sound effects drawn out over several minutes doesn't help, either. Probably the single most interesting point on the disc is the choral acapella song - nearly a Gregorian chant - on track 12. I was captivated by this for a moment, and forgot what the record sounded like. Unfortunately the band comes back again and fucks everything up. The band is tight enough, for the most part. There is nothing going on here that demands any stretch of talent or ability, so it's not surprising that no one fucks it up. The sound is composed of orchestral background keys, occasional distorted guitar chords, a clean, melodic guitar taking the lead, and a rhythm section composed of a nothing special basser and drummist. There is nothing inventive or unique to anything the group is doing, nothing which inspires me to want to listen to this more to find what I may have missed the first time. The production is actually pretty good for this kind of music. Although quiet -reverent - it is warm and deep. There is nothing drowning anything else out. Its all right there if you are interested. Bottom Line: I do not recommend this record. It's dull, tedious, bland and silly. If you really like goth you may enjoy this, however, as the recording is good and the band doesn't fuck anything up...as far as it goes. If you really like Goth I don't know why you came to a site called MetalReview, though. I won't ever listen to this again.

Release Details

Canaan

A Calling To Weakness

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