DAMNATION

This album does a precision strike to my sense of style matching it perfectly. The songs are full of autumn melancholy, with layers of nostalgic Mellotron shades added to tone the canvas by the guest musician Steve Wilson. There are no distortions in the guitars except for some solos, and there are some acoustic riffs here too. Also the growling vocal style is changed here to more tender and even feminine singing style. Rhythms are peaceful but with interesting unconventional twists and the depressive moods are expressed with more delicate manner, than giving the all possible speed for the double bass drums.

I once noticed an inlay card of some record by Opeth, and I saw there greetings towards Anekdoten and Landberk in it. "Damnation" proves that the players of Opeth liked their stuff so much, that they even ventured themselves to the musical realm of anxiety and melancholy presented by those records. In addition of these bands which poured their influence from classic King Crimson, there are also some hints of more recent incarnations of that band to be heard in this release, like the symmetrical vocal arrangements of the second song, which resemble Adrian Belew's artistic style. As this album sounds very much like the records of this decade by the bands which started Swedish Mellotron renaissance in the 1990's, the music could be stated as not being very original. Still many heavy metal bands for example, which copy the style of some respected classic records, can be cherished as they carry forward a valued style, and therefore this originality issue doesn't lower the status of this release in my opinion. On the contradictory, I think that this release honors the artistic goals of albums like "Symphonic Holocaust" and "From Within", and adds more wonderful material to the genre (Swedish Mellotron melancholy?).

I have not heard the other works of this band, so I won't evaluate this music by comparing them to their career, but as an individual release. I'll think I check out other metal releases of this band too, but this kind of softer music is more easier to listen for me, as in my opinion consumption of chaotic music requires a manic state of mind, or an ability of not to empathize on the music, a skill which I lack.