Dark Fortress - Séance
Century Media Records – 30/01/06
By Sam Brokenshaw
Wow, this band sure must be good! Just check that press release! Hype sure makes me want to like a band, thanks for stuffing it so full of comments making this band out to be the all new "saviours of black metal". Ok ranting aside, there ain't too much to get excited about here in reality. Just like
Secrets of the Moon, we have another German black metal band slated as being the next big thing. Unfortunately someone forgot to write the instantly classic material to cement this as being true. Sure, what's on offer here is far from terrible and is musically competent. The band can play in time anyway, even if what they're playing is as dull as last weeks dirty bath water. In addition, for the second time this month we get a dose of my current pet hate, vocals that sound like they're being performed by an asthmatic pensioner after six months dwelling in a particularly damp garden shed.
It's not all bad however. The band do manage to conjure up a suitably evil and dark atmosphere, which sets them light years ahead of pretenders like
The Deviant. On average the songs are longer than your usual black metal fare, bordering on the epic length. Sadly they really don't hold my attention for the required span in order to make this worthwhile, generally I'm reaching for the skip button after two to three minutes. To get back to an earlier issue, the hype surrounding this album from the record label is really something, and if this is all you have to do to be the next big thing then I don't see why everyone isn't forming a slightly expansive black metal band and donning trowel-applied corpsepaint. On the basis of this month's new black metal releases I'd be tempted to wait and see if the new
Satyricon album is actually any good after the let down that was "
Volcano". Or the more adept back metal listener might want to wait for the likely brilliant new
Shining album. If you really like this type of thing then maybe you should grab this album, but those with only a passing interesting in black metal had probably better not bother.
5/10
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