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Norway - Full Moon 167 - 04/28/10
It's a label showdown! Welcome to round 10 in the label showdown series between Metronomicon Audio and Jester Records!
Since we've more or less totally missed out on reviewing the output of these two great labels, we are going
through their entire catalogues, matching the releases from each label consecutively against each other.
Humorously counting goals Match preview The Star of Ash release comes in a jewel case and includes a booklet with art & info. The match First up is Center of the universe with "Oh no! what a terrible situation"
serving up the usual array of dry-sounding synthetic rhythms and sounds. There's a lot
of different keyboard sounds here, but the Casio/vintage videogame aesthetics are
overwhelming this nice, but forgettable C.O.U. tune.
Forgettable is also Täppas Strepens' guitar-strumming campfire
song "Der pinkeldne tod", it could easily be a filler on the Beans, Bacon & Gravity album.
Absolutetly more interesting is Cyrano's "Cyrano luv", blending cold minimal synthpop
with an exquisitely lush refrain, reminiscent of Air. This blend of 80's industrial minimalism
and beautiful psychedelic spacepop is magnificient Lower than lo-fi (C. Stouff) might be just that, "But higher" certainly doesn't challenge your hi-fi as
all high frequencies seems abscent. If we look beyond this studio trickery, we're left with a
rather grey and dull song, accompanied by acoustic guitar and harmonica.
The next cut, Vildensky, seems to be both an artist moniker and the song title.
Sounds like samples of 1920's dancefloor music and old jazz, cut-up and churned into a
mix that doesn't make much sense Marie Sofie sings her nice, calm "starsandalike" accompanied only by acoustic guitar, seemingly
recorded live at Amatøren (people talking in the background). Somewhat forgettable also, but
that's all forgotten when Helene Rickhard takes over with "Pms", an irritating synthetic
break-beat rave-up To sum it up: Aside from a couple of highlights, this compilation can not be recommended as the
best introduction to the Metronomicon rooster. Then again it is not a best-of compilation, but new
tracks from the here and now - a glimpse into the creative collective that is Metronomicon Audio.
Cyrano however, steals the show - his "Cyrano luv" is a smasher Star of Ash is Heidi Solberg Tveitan (aka Ihriel), wife of Vegard Sverre Tveitan (aka Ihsahn of Emperor), both members of Peccatum. Ihsahn is a black metal guitarist par excellence (and he also plays on this album), but Peccatum I'm not familiar with. So off we go. Parts of iter.viator. are subdued and lyrical, with piano and strings building a reflective, sad atmosphere.
This interacts with more dramatic parts, the singing occasionally adapting a more operatic style.
Sometimes it develops into nightmarish cacophony, other times visiting lusher themes,
while tracks like "Death Salutes Atropos" and "Odi Et Amo" are more confined to a goth-metal context.
The lyrics are overall cryptic, images of light and darkness painted over each other, in that regard
fitting the music well Often when musicians associated with metal go outside the genre, they bring a big brush, paint with large strokes, and use clear colours. There's nothing wrong with that, but often this means that descriptions like "avant-garde" or "experimental" should be read with caution when they are combined with "metal". Hard to put a label on "iter.viator." though. Dark chamber-goth-metal-trip-hop? And you may add "post", "neo", "avant" or "experimental" anywhere in there, if that makes things any clearer. This is also the main problem with this album. Its musical direction is unfocused, yet kind of stereotyped. And the duality which we find both in the music and the lyrics is, if not predictable, then at least unoriginal. Jester insiders Tore Ylwizaker and Kristoffer Rygg (both Ulver) help in the studio, leaving their sonic marks, but to little avail. To sum it up: A line from lyrics of "The Nudity of Light" says "the shallowness of my own words
sickens me ... mutes me". Perhaps this kind of self-insight should also apply to me and my review of this album ...
I admit that it fails to engage me as a listener Match result: Metronomicon Audio 3 (
Next match Copyright © 2010 Knut Tore Breivik
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Various Artists: 1.0
and giving out yellow
and red
cards, soccer style -
but first of all reviewing the music. For more introductory information on this label match, see
