TALE OF A DARK FATE

The good things about this are the vintage keyboards, the flute and the viola. The keyboards especially evoke a Gobin-like atmosphere without being too cheesy. The bass is quite prominent and worth a listen. I like the overall sound of the instruments.

On the other side, the album plots along rather politely for a "horror" release. The atmosphere is mellow, soft, relaxed and in parts even ambient. Of course, some listeners may like this. Just be warned that there is no suspension here. All tracks are pretty much one tempo, one volume and one level of excitement throughout. Maybe sometimes it could be called slighty eerie. (But to be honest it seems like a stretch to me.)

A thing that should be mentioned, is the very high level of repetition. I am an avid Zeuhl and (Post)Minimalism / Totalism fan and therefore not inherently against repetition. However, here, phrases are repeated to death. It seems pointless most of the time, as repetitions are not used for suspension or to get the songs somewhere. In my opinion, Clotho could have been made three minutes shorter by cutting out repeated phrases and it would still be pretty much the same song. The repetitions give this a post rock/post metal like feel - it is post horror, if you will and listeners might appreciate it for this. A post horror approach is quite unique, as far as I know.

Another thing on this album, is that the band seems to be keen on a " one instrument after the other" approach. It seems like an exercise in 'now the keyboards play, and now it is the viola's turn after that, now the keyboards play again, now the flute plays for one minute...". If we are very lucky, maybe the bass might be allowed in at the same time as one of those instruments. I am exaggerating a tiny bit, but the music here is definitely sparse. Of course, this might be a plus for listeners who like their music not to be very busy. (To better decide if this might be for you, you should know that I personally quite like the concept of every instrument soloing at the same time. The Mars Volta, Koenjihyakkei and a lot of Free Jazz are just the right level of busy for me. So might look at this from a slightly extreme standpoint.)

To summarise: They shaped post horror and the instruments sound great. It is a bit unique, but also a bit frustrating because of missing suspension, too many repetitions, compositional simplicity and general politeness. Still definitely a band to watch out for.

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