RENAISSANCE

By all standards, this album is a weird, weird album. It is also an album where the ambitions by far outweighs the skills. Or what can you say about two songs where the first is forty minutes long and the second song is thirty minutes long ? You really have to be something special to pull that one off. This band from Belgium is not the special ones. Their level of talents is questionable.

The first song, the forty minutes long The Death of Art is a mix of avant-garde/rio, zeuhl, metal, folk prog, symph and some eclectic prog. It has some good ideas, but most of this song runs out ideas and becomes a slightly annoying sound collage. If they had removed thirty minutes of this song, it could had been good.

The second song Archway clocks in on around thirty minutes and is a total different beast again. Gone is the prog and rock elements. In comes a through and through doom metal soundscape with some zeuhl elements included. Think early Anathema and My Dying Bride. The vocals is growls and the guitars is downtuned. But the quality of this song is far better than the title track. There are some really good stuff on this song.

In short; this album is a mix of everything and almost feels like the compilation album it really is. The band went for broke on these two highly, highly ambitious songs and has created a truly unique album which is worth checking out for those seeking out some truly original stuff. This despite of the dubious quality of the material here. It is worthy of a couple of stars anyway. It is a pity the band gave up, but also very understandable. They deserve full marks for the attempt though.

2 stars