34.788%...COMPLETE

After the tepid reception of Like Gods Of The Sun, MDB changed the grunge oriented sound of that album to a more experimental direction. 34.788 %...Complete is an industrial and Goth-tinged alternative metal album where MDB tried to catch up with the genre defying music that The Gathering and Tiamat had released in the preceding years. It was very much a hit and miss again. 34.788 %...Complete has the potential of a good album but suffers from a number of shortcomings.

This becomes evident right from the start. The Whore, The Cook and The Mother has nice quiet atmospherics and great heavy Goth symphonic metal parts. But the problem is Aaron's vocal capabilities, or lack thereof. This is the third MDB album in a row where he only uses his singing voice, be it with a bit distortion on some tracks. His clean vocals are inexpressive and dreary, and since he can't convey any dynamics through them, the sinister power of his gruff vocals are surely missed.

A second problem is that each of the tracks is a least 3 minutes too long. There are simply not enough ideas or development in the music to keep them going for more then 5 minutes. Songs like Herion Chic and Apocalypse Woman would have been excellent had they been reduced to appropriate lengths. Now they're merely average. Only Under Your Wings manages to find the balance between length and substance.

Not the best MDB, but probably not as bad as advertised. 2.5 stars