IN ARCHETYPES

In this period of his career (for Senmuth a "period" can be two or three months long) the ethnic/ambient is where he's able to make his best. After a couple of releases on the metal side which are weak and leading nowhere from a musical perspective he releases this "In Archetypes" that's midway. Not totally ambient because the industrial metal element is present in almost all the tracks, but with more attention to the composition and the melodic lines.

He seems to have abandoned the useless changes of pitch and even on tracks like "Insight Torn" where the metal element is dominant, it's possible to understand where the music is going.

The first very good track of the album is "Psyheya" that I think is only a wrong transliteration of the Greek "Psyche" (Ψυχή). If something like "Powerful Ambientt" would exist this could be its label.

After a good guitar solo in a quite weak track (Visualization of Flowerdance) and a track that sounds identical to the previous (Internal Celebration) The acoustic guitar returns. When Valery plays acoustic the music is more meaningful. "Sad Aroma Of Flowers" is a good example.

I don't know if "Touching Anima" is referred to his previous band, Anima, which means "soul" in Latin. It's another typicval Senmuth's song that takes about 3 minutes before the acoustic guitar introduces an intelligible melody. A good half-song.

"Vanishing In Gardens" is vanishing in distortion. It doesn't add anything, just another average Senmuth's track.

Totally different is "Calm Of Dews" again with acoustic and classical guitar trying to emerge from the heavy keyboards and the distortion. Above the average.

"The Secret" brings us back to India, as often happens with Senmuth. An average track of this kind, with the usual pauses filled by ethnic instruments and a lot of acoustic stuff overwhelming the distorted tapestry. I like this kind of tracks in Senmuth when as in this album they are not filling the whole release.

In brief an average album after two unsatisfactory releases.

3 stars but rounded up