WAVES OF VISUAL DECAY

Same again

Just a year on from their debut "Conspiracy in mind", and Communic returned in 2006 with a set of seven more lengthy numbers. With an unchanged line up, the Norwegians once again decamped to Denmark for the recording sessions. The result is an album which builds on the ground broken by their debut, while remaining very much in the same mould. The very basic line up of guitar, vocals, bass and drums indicates once again that we should not expect a great diversity of sound, and that expectation proves correct.

The order of the day is metal, with heavy guitar riffs over a powerhouse backing. The vocal arrangements are often complex, perhaps at times unnecessarily so. On the opening 8½ minute "Under a Luminous Sky" for example, we are presented with three or four different vocal styles in as many minutes. While the music twists and turns through varying but similar tunes, I hesitate to describe it as progressive. In some ways, like with so many metal bands, the album flatters to deceive, the succession of slightly varied riffs disguising an underlying sameness.

As with the debut, it is on the slightly slower but equally powerful tracks such as "Frozen asleep in the park" that the vocal prowess of the band comes to the fore, and with it delivers the pick of the songs. "Fooled by the serpent" is another song with impressive vocals, the arrangement including some welcome lighter moments and some all too rare lead guitar soloing. The title track is the pinnacle of the album, as it contains the strongest melodies and is more genuine diversity than its peers. I would recommend the track to anyone looking for a first impression of the band.

Apart from a very brief possibility, I am unable to detect any keyboards being used this time. They seemed to appear unaccredited on the debut.

The overall result is a fine album which for me suffers from a sense of sameness. That sameness is both in respect of the tracks gathered here, and with the previous album. There is no doubt that the band have talents both in the creation and the performance of the music. It is good to see that they have ambitions when it comes to the arrangements, I only wish those ambitions could be extended to a bit more diversity of sound. Apart from that grumble, this is a fine metal album.

The album concludes with two demos of tracks which appeared on the first album. The versions here are clearly well advanced in their preparation, but their presence here seems somewhat superfluous.

"Waves of Visual Decay" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Norwegian metal act Communic. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in May 2006. The "regular" version of the album contains seven tracks. The limited edition comes with two bonus tracks. Both tracks are also featured in this version on the band´s 2004 "Conspiracy in Mind" demo and also appeared in re-recorded version on the 2005 "Conspiracy in Mind" full-length studio album. "Waves of Visual Decay" was produced by prolific Danish producer/musician Jacob Hansen.

The music on the album is semi-progressive thrashy power metal and just as the case was on the debut album a comparison to Nevermore is not that far off the mark. lead vocalist/guitarist Oddleif Stensland has a voice and a singing style that is so similar to the voice and singing style of Warrel Dane ( Nevermore, Sancturary) that it´s impossible not to notice it and mention it. There are moments on this album that sounds unmistakably like Nevermore (albeit without the outstanding guitar playing by Jeff Loomis) and I´m a bit biased if I think that´s a strength or a weakness. Communic generally has a more epic progressive style that sets them apart from Nevermore, but there are generally more similarities than differences.

The seven tracks on the 57:54 minutes long album are all between 6 and 9 minutes long and all feature hook laden choruses, heavy thrashy/power metal riffing, occasional keyboard backing, and those paatos filled powerful clean vocals by Oddleif Stensland. While I at times could have wished for a more raw and stripped down approach, it´s to mye ears still a winning formula. All tracks on "Waves of Visual Decay" are quality compositions, the playing is impeccable, and with a powerful sound production to boot, this album screams quality all the way through.

One of my complaints about the debut album was that the songwriting was a bit formulaic and vers/chorus based, and that´s unfortunately also true on "Waves of Visual Decay". Vers/chorus based songwriting isn´t always an issue, but as both the vers and the chorus sections are as long as they are on this album, it tends to get a bit repetitive when the band repeat themselves for the third time, but that´s my only complaint about the album and of course this is also an aquired taste. If Communic could "cut a bit of the fat" they would probably be a bit more appealing though. Still a 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.

3.5 stars really

Communic is a great norwegian progressive/power metal band with quite a solid career so far. Waves of visual decay is their second release from 2006 issued by Nuclear Blast. Well, this is pretty solid album, with tight and inventive musicianship, Communic has only 3 memebers but thy done a fantastic job here. 7 pieces , each one quite long with twists and breaks, tempo changes and all ingredients to be a great power/progressive metal album. The instrumental parts are quite long and plenty of them, showing how strong musicns they are. Under a Luminous Sky, the opening track or the title track are simply great, Communic offering something of a real intrest in such genre. The album overall maybe is to raw for some prog metal fans, but has lots of melodic guitar lines. This is a nice album with great art work and even the lyrics are pretty much more then ok.3.5 stars to this one, my fav Communic album and maybe their best so far.