MESMERISED

The music style on "Mesmerized" is slow and melodic doomy metal mixed with post metal/rock elements. There are lots of lead guitar melodies which are the driving force in most of the tracks. There are both growling vocals and "clean" female singing. The female vocals by Monika Edvardsen are pretty sure to be an aquired taste though. Personally I think the vocals sound like Björk with a hangover combined with some middle eastern sounding notes like the singing style that Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance practices. It´s safe to say that I´m not impressed. Actually the female vocals make the already cliché filled doom metal style on the album sound even less appealing.

The sound production is quite flat, powerless and lacks punch.

I try to dig out the positives on most albums that I review, but "Mesmerized" really hits the bottom with a bang. Had the female vocals not sounded as out of tune and weird for the sake of it I could be pursuaded into giving a 2 star (40%) rating for the instrumental side of the music but as the album is now I can´t give more than a 1 star (20%) rating. I find very few redeeming qualities about this album. I know the band have improved greatly on subsequent releases though, so I recommend seeking out those before purchasing "Mesmerized".

Mesmerise was releaed around the time of the debut albums from Funeral, Theatre Of Tragedy and The Third And The Mortal. All four bands had female vocals and that caused a bit of a stirr in the metal scene at that time. It invented a whole new metal scene called Goth Metal, no less. Atrox was the smallest and most unknown band in this scene and this album was poorly marketed. After some listening to this album, the lack of quality is the reason for the lack of commercial success. Where the other three bands created plenty of melodies and variations, this album is like listening to six hours of Hare Krishna or Buddhist monks. This album has one tune throughout, sometimes suplemented by some electronica and some haunting female vocals. The female vocals is not to my liking, although I am not saying it is bad. The guitars are unimaginative and stale. The same goes for the drums and the bass. That's about it, really. Atrox went on to do better things....... I hope ! I also bought their other albums....... This one is no good, though.

1.5 stars