Pantheon I - The Wanderer and his Shadow
Candlelight Records - CDL329 - May 22nd 2007
By Michael Koger
I'll admit, I don't like
1349. When I saw that two members from
1349 were in
Pantheon I, I approached with caution fearing a nonstop blastbeat ridden aural mish mash of riffs and violence. Luckily, with
Pantheon I, that is not the case, as evident on
The Wanderer and His Shadow.
The music is very diverse. The guitarists aren't afraid to do something other than tremolo pick a bunch of notes and play diminished chords. Guitar nerd talk aside, the guitar work is very well done. You can point to almost any track and find something interesting about the riffing. Also, you can actually hear the bass on the tracks! What a novel concept in black metal. At times the bass work reminds me of
Ved Buens Ende; the bass lines meander and do what they will. A very nice addition to the music is the use of cellos and violins helping to create a somber or melancholic mood when necessary. Listen to the end of track 7,
'My Curse', where the band fades out and lets the strings take over for almost two minutes in a fashion not unlike
Winds.
What's funny about the songs is some of them will start off sounding like B-sides off some
1349 record, but if you let the songs develop and progress, you'll see them progress and develop. The title choice,
The Wanderer and His Shadow, is a very appropriate one as the music tends to wander in and out of various sub genres of Black metal. Track six,
'Where Angels Burn', starts off in
1349 fashion but then violins come in, the music stops, a marching drum beat plays for a bit, and the music goes off in another direction. This is not to say that the music is all over the place like
Psyopus; it is focused and coherent. At around the three minute mark on
'Cyanide Storm', it almost sounds like a completely different song has started, but it returns to the melodies created earlier in the song tying it all together.
One of the highlights of the album is the fourth track,
'Coming to an End'(which would probably have been a better choice for a last track). This is the first song where the cello is used, and the pace of the album is changed. Also, the listener is treated to some guest vocals courtesy of Lazare from
Solefald. The guest vocals provide a perfect contrast to Andre's constant screaming. If there is one consistent downfall of the album, it's the limited capabilities of vocalist Andre Kvebek. His vocals don't have a whole lot of range and, at times, border on sounding like something out of a metalcore band. Even then, it's not that huge of a problem. The album ends on a rather unspectacular note with the song,
'Chaos Incarnate'. I was hoping for something a bit more epic like what was featured on the earlier tracks.
Vocal work aside, this is definitely an album worth checking out. Fans of
1349 and
Sarkom will be pleased, as will fans of diverse black metal backgrounds, even the avant garde black metal fans.
Official Pantheon I website
Official Candlelight Records website
