Eradicating
and epic are the fittest terms to describe the Romans' debut; the former
is referred to their music and the latter is connected to their elaborated
logo standing out on an eagle/phoenix and to their lyrics.
The first of the 6 tracks, "Condemned to Life", is
opened by an intro with wolves' howls (which are by the way my second
favourite animals after bears); it's raw Black with symphonic splits,
followed by a break with an arpeggio and a guitar solo, to fully later
take back the main attacking riff. The kick drums own a granitical sound,
although you'll agree with me that the snare drums sound noisy but also
a little artificial occasionally.
"Disharmonically Walking in Time" is mainly slow-paced;
an excellently original and effective song; the screams and the resting
vocals are robotic, the fast riff reminds me of some Swedish sounds,
but on the whole the track results in being truely evil and suggestive.
Usually I find faded endings banal, but in this case it's really necessary
and well-chosen. One of the highest moments of the record. Soon after
comes "Thy Abyss through the Stars", a black composition
with a power riff in the middle and a lot of Norwegian black metal ones
too.
I bow in front of a super song like "Sleepless Night";
many wished they'd been capable to compose such a masterpiece, I bet
on that! This one should be used for all Black metal apprentices as
a pattern of how to write a dynamic and powerful song: there's Black,
another power riff and massive thrash metal ones galore! There's even
place for a few Death metal vocals and a quite skillful guitar solo
twined by the drummer making remarkable stuff in the background. Absolutely
the top of the CD!
Gaining ground like a tank, "Oblivion" includes another
central arpeggio, while martial drumwork and hopeless lyrics in Italian
and English complete the handiwork.
Over 6 minutes of harsh fast and majestic mid-paced Black metal riffing
for "Enchanting Embrace", substained by triple bilingual
vocals (among which a few good recitative ones) definitely convince
me about Throne of Decadence's proposal, concluded by the same howlings
heard in the beginning.
I've learned these 30 minutes were hard to record especially for singer-bassist
Tyriel, nevertheless I can't but stress out that next time he must spend
more time to render his vocal arrangements smoother and put better on
the music bars before entering a studio. The other fault is the sound
of the snare drums which, as mentioned previously, is a bit false on
some occasions, on the other hand the good news are many: good songwriting,
exposing a fairly defined personality, and a mature attitude reflected
by their lyrics, perfectly matched with the artwork. If you dig wicked
and evocative Black metal, then it's nice to spend a few Euros for this
CD, currently limited to only 300 copies.
MARKUS GANZHERRLICH - 4/5/04
Contacts:
E-mail: info@throneofdecadence.com
www.throneofdecadence.com
