THE MORIBUND PEOPLE

"All tracks draw on the eerie and bizarre sonic landscapes of Lost in Reverie" - says the official site. Don't believe it. The Moribund People differs from Lost in Reverie as much as Lost in Reverie differed from PECCATUM's previous attempts. Once again the Norwegian duo offers you sadness and despair to experience - but with many new elements.

The title track is a killer. Composed in a more traditional vein (I'd even call it progressive gothic rock), it has lots of symphonic keyboards, amazingly catchy and emotional chorus, clever lyrics and some of Ihsahn's stunning screams (for the first time since The Sham Mirrors by ARCTURUS, by the way). In my opinion, given good promotion this song could become band's first real hit. A Penny's Worth of Heart is pure Peccatum - experimental from beginning to end and sounds like nothing you've heard before. It mostly flows as an industrial song but changes to metal with screaming for a few times. Not as polished as the title track, but still very impressive. For All Those Who Died is probably not too well known among the visitors of ProgArchives - it is considered as one of the masterpieces of black metal (originally performed by BATHORY). This version is so much better than the original that it could even be offensive to the memory of Quorthon, the original composer (he passed away last summer and this cover version is dedicated to him). The video for the title track is very good, but masked marching people always brings back memories of Another Brick In The Wall. :)

The Moribund People is a definite step forward - in musical, lyrical and productional ways. For stars, because fifteen minutes in not enough.

A perfect swan song for ex-Emperor Ihsahn and star of ash's Ihriel's project. Booting Lord PZ was definately an improvement for the act, as Ihriel's haunting singting are woven perfectly with Ihsahn's demonic spitty screams or his melodramatic opera-ish tenor. The music is a mixture of dark ambient with moments of metal riffs. The title track is energetic, despite "moribund" meaning "dying", and "A Penny's Worth of Heart" is disturbing and moody. "For Those who Died" is a Bathory cover that is carried out competently and beautifully. There is a video for the title track, too, that is worth watching, although I don't quite get the guy in the chair screaming in pain. The best Peccatum and sadly, the last.

Peccatum is a band that seems to be influenced by many different styles of metal such as black, gothic and doom. It reminds me of bands like dead can dance and theater of tragedy. This EP consist of three tracks, full of darkness and deep emotions. It mostly varies from atmospheric parts, which are slow, have female vocals and dark melodies played on keyboards, to heavy parts which are much faster and have male screams.

I'm not going to go into each song cause Vaxis has done this really well in his review. Anyway this is an ep with three songs and it only gives you an idea of Peccatum's music. However, it's a pleasant listen.

Not much progressive elements inside all that, however this is a highly recommended cd to all anathema fans and people who enjoy gothic music generally (not saying that anathema is gothic. far from it...) . To a prog-metal fan I would say it's not what he would expect from the categorization. To me, this ep is really promising but not essential. Three stars!