HOW THE WORLD CAME TO AN END

Thanks to a nice recommendation, I picked up the 2003 album by this Norwegian band, and "Vilosophe" easily became a favorite album of mine, one of my top 5 metal related albums ever, and despite I was skeptic with that recommendation I fortunately took it and nowadays I am really happy with it. The thing is that I said "oh what a great album, I should listen to another of theirs", and I did it, I searched for their latest record, released in 2007 and entitled "How the World came to an End", and my feelings were completely different from the ones I had with Vilosophe, now I can say I regret discovering this album.

The reasons will be stated later, but now I can tell you that the exquisite experimentation I found in Vilosophe, lacks in this record, here they wanted to produce different experiments, and in my opinion, they terribly failed. The album consists of ten tracks making a total time of 45 minutes. This time I will be brief with my descriptions, I thought about not reviewing track by track here, but that is not my style, so I'll give you only some thoughts. "Deprooted" opens with a funny electronic sound that reminds me of Nintendo, then it changes and adds female vocals, the music is heavy, could be described as electronic metal. "Come to Pass" has some storm sound and that electronic-metal combination prevails. But here we have a thing that ruins it all, the music becomes electronic-hip hop- metal, and believe me it is horrible, I assume the band wanted to cross boundaries, but this time they failed.

"I Watch You Fall" has a new vocal style, fortunately is not the hip hop one, this sounds better, with more passion. However, those horrible vocals return in the last part, and of course that does not help. "A Cancer in our Mist" returns to that heavy Manes sound, in moments it reminds me a bit of Vilosophe, so it is not bad at all.

"Last Lights" starts slow and gradually progresses, they keep experimenting in each of the songs, and the most evident example is in the vocals. "Nobody wants the Truth" is an addictive song that may attract the listener, it has some nice changes and good guitar work. Despite being a decent track, in moments I think this album lacks of direction, I don't really know what was the main idea and goal of the band when creating this album.

"My Journal of the Plague Years" has a darker sound, robotic vocals and dramatic music, the sound overall is strong, though there are some soft passages, this is a cool track, in spite of some voices. "The Cure-All" is a softer track, it eases you from the previous storm and it is good for a minute. But later, those hip hop vocals return, and again, destroys the music. Hope manes do not repeat this mistake in future releases.

"Transmigrant" starts with some people's noises which later disappear, then the structure begins to be build up. While the music could be calm, the vocals sound too loud, I know it was on purpose, one more of their experiments, but this time does not sound that bad, actually it gives more strength to the song. Finally "Son of Night Brother of Sleep" reminds me to the last song of Vilosophe, because there is a voice speaking as foreground, while the music as background.

Well, I was disappointed with this album, needless to say, while I highly recommend Vilosophe, I would not recommend How the World came to an End, at all. My final grade is two stars. However?

Enjoy it!

Share this MANES review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to memowakeman
• Report this review (#308936)
• Buy MANES music online with PA partners
• Show all MANES MP3/Stream
• Go to MANES page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to How The World Came To An End page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for MANES related discussions