Monday, October 20, 2008

Dwellers of the Twilight - Grey (2008)

My initial impression of this was extreme confusion owing to the inclusion of Anaal Nathrakh files to the song list. Was it supposed to be a cover band? Were they claiming these songs as theirs? As it turned out, to my irritation, some incompetent took it upon himself to add them in for unspecified reasons. With that fixed up, let's read on to see what the actual album is like.

You could perhaps lump these two French blokes in with the Nathrakh, as they play an unrelenting, pissed-off branch of black metal. The sound is very solid, vocals suitably misanthropic, sharp-edged guitars, the whole deal. Is it as good as the British lords of black/death metal, though? No, not at all. But even if I wasn't comparing the two, Grey still doesn't stand out by much. While it's heavy enough, it's a pretty monotonous ride. The pace is relegated to fast and slightly faster on almost all songs. The vocals, which really are pretty good, don't change whatsoever, eventually blending with the unrelenting blast beats as the baseline for every piece. "Blessed Heir" has a nice thrash edge to it, while "Trail of the Foe" and "Darkest Son" bring the pace down and save some breath for melody, and in general the guitarwork has a good flow, but almost all the songs feel more or less the same. I'm sure you get the drift - not much of this sticks out, or stays with you after it's over. Oh, and let's not forget the pointless outro track that has nothing to do with the rest of the album.

Good for a couple spins, after which it's not worth hearing again.

Verdict: Indifference [3/5]

http://www.myspace.com/dwellersofthetwilight

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