TRANSCENDENTAL

I discovered To-mera in 2005 when they still only had their two-song demo out. "Born of Ashes" and "Dreadful Angel" were the two songs contained on this demo and obviously I was impressed, after all they displayed so well the musicianship within the band, the creativity, the perfectionism. Other people were apparently also impressed since this demo won the demo of the year in a metal magazine, I guess Metal Hammer. But now they have added to these two songs 6 more and made their big debut.

It opens up very promisingly with the intro "Traces", despite the cheesy atmospheric keyboards. "Blood" is a good metal tune with a catchy chorus and compact structure, perfect as the single from the album. Unfortunately it all goes downhill from here....

...as we enter "Dreadful Angel" one of the songs I liked from the demo. The problem with it is that, while it was certainly novel at the time to hear a band combining progressive and symphonic metal with jazz and with such instrumental finesse, it didn't necessarily mean that these were cohesive compositions during which the listener can keep track of what is going on. In other words, the band is trying to accomplish too much in too short a time and what comes out is directionless mumbo-jumbo. There are some truly beautiful melodies here, very heavy riffs, even some blastbeats - but that doesn't save the album from drowning in its bloated pretense.

It is hard to truly enjoy anything on here save for "Blood", which is okay, but not nearly as ambitious as the rest really. "To-mera" has a ridiculous amount of talent per capita but they need to work on songwriting.