EASTERICA

The unknown one (whose personality is yet to be revealed) behind project Misanthrofeel seems like nice guy so I volunteered to do this review. After all, I like being introduced to new things.

Since beginning, we simply know that genre in which this artist is placed is only approximate of what this should be. Song themes on this album derives mostly from mythology, legends (etc) of Arabic/Egyptian lands, therefore expect these "oriental" like melodies. If you heard Aviva's Nutcracker in Fury, expect something similar, except this is without so much synth sounds.

Everything here is formed on Hard Rock/Metal guitars, very heavy sounding + interesting drums that may or may not be fully electronic (or some parts are, some are not, but some of them are quite annoying - these very fast paced ones), that's still mystery to me. But what's important here to note is that here comes main attraction of this album - guitar that dominates this as main instrument. I again hope it's not electronic, but real one, because this music makes me little bit confused. It's however possible and in this case I wouldn't mind it as long as it sounds good.

Melodies, song writing is quite complex and these 9 tracks aren't bad. Even something is missing here. Please correct me if I'm wrong, this seems to me like one man project and as such, this is even more remarkable that this happened, this was released. However, when compared to major Prog bands, of course these are two different worlds.

Please take it like that

3(-), because it's not bad, nor average. Basically it's about guitar plucking.

This review is a typical example of different musical backgrounds and experiences. Hence a radically different review than the other review(s), but still more or less coming to the exact same conclusion.

Our friend Dmitry may have had other visions in his head when composing this album, but it does come across as a blend of Scandinavian folk music and industrial metal. It has the feel of one of these Scandinavian crossbreeds between black metal and folk music which the scene has been littered with for the past fifteen years. The band Ulver started this trend and others has followed their lead. Misanthrofeel too is down this path. But the lack of acoustic instruments does limits the final result. You still have these harsh industrial grind metal guitars in the background and the computers. That's not exactly acoustic instruments. Then you also have some electric guitars on the top of the mix too. Included some metal riffs chugging and you get this album.

The music is pretty good though. It is certainly a different approach to this folk music scene. An approach handicapped by the computers and the lack of human resources, this being a one man project. But I am not so sure if Dmitry really wanted to go down that folk music road anyway. I am not going to second guess his intentions.

This album is pretty good and it is a pretty innovative album as far as I know. Industrial metal combined with folk music......... I cannot remember anyone done this before. It is like mixing fire with water. Smoke is the result. But this album is pretty OK and worthy the free download.

3 stars (barely)

'Easterica' - Misanthrofeel (5/10)

After a relatively successful experiment with his debut full-length 'Sampleria,' the man behind Misanthrofeel decided to focus his efforts on a more uniform theme. While the debut stretched over several styles, the second Misanthrofeel release 'Easterica' centers it's music around a dark oriental/arabic sound. While this development in the way Misanthrofeel makes albums is likely to it's benefit in the long run, 'Easterica' seems to go a bit too far with the uniformity; and ultimately suffers from a lack of variety.

To those that are not initiated with the music of this project, Misanthrofeel is the work of one man who composes and performs all of his music on a computer. While the fact that none of the music is actually 'performed' (only programmed,) Misanthrofeel still stands as being a talented composer. With that in mind, the music here cannot be approached as one would with music performed by live musicians. While there is a slightly warmer sound than had been heard before with Misanthrofeel, the performance of otherwise interesting compositions is made very cold and heartless.

In terms of the music here, things sound alot along the lines of a soundtrack to one of the classic Prince Of Persia video games, in both the composition and execution. Things are generally kept pretty dark and haunting throughout, and the music is driven by distorted guitar chord emulations with a generally 'delayed' melodic line running overtop.

'Easterica' is a decent concept piece, but it suffers from it's 'samey' nature, making the debut album a slightly more fulfilling listen. However, the execution and programming this time around is better, showing that the work of Misanthrofeel will only improve with time.