Friday, 13 February 2015

Forgot - Burning Down (PROPAGANDA, 2006)

 
 Forgot - Burning Down

This is in fact a re-issue of an album originally released five years ago in tape format from Ancient Nation Productions. I have to say, Wizard (the sole member behind the band) has a knack for catchy riffs that are well enmeshed in black metal melodicism particularly in post-Burzum outfits. There are few Scandinavian influences with regards to music style here, with a lot of the riffage bringing to mind bands across the Atlantic such as Xasthur, Velvet Cacoon etc. The drumming exhibits little to no variation but the monotony here befits the bleak soundscapes of the music quite well. The keyboards which are sparsely dispersed within songs also enhance the atmospheric effect. On the negative side, the technique is sub-par: the album is riddled with disjoint passages and there is an irregular, almost hectic alternation between themes. The weak sound doesn't ease things either; the guitars fluidity flails and whines in the midst of it all becoming almost incoherent in some songs. An improvement in this department would definitely raise the music's quality quite a few notches. There are attention-grabbing ideas here but alas they are in desperate need of clarity and direction. If in lieu of this debut, they had taken the few highlights from this effort and released it as a demo, it would have probably been one of the top demos in its field. However, taken in the scale of a proper album release there is still a number of things to be desired from this strident slab of black metal in terms of organization and prudence.

(originally written for Tartarean Desire - 3/1/2007)

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