| Release Entry was last updated on 2/2/2010
by Rob |
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RECORDING INFORMATION |
After a couple of demos, This is the first official album
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| COMMENTS & REVIEWS |
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RobbyS
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Published on: 26 Sep 2003
Let me start off by LABLING the album, likely to the chagrin of the tortured artists that created it. GOTHIC OPERA, INTENSE, HEAVY. Like DEATH METAL but strikingly less METALIC (as it were), and more HORRIFIC (think like a horror movie). SIMILAR ARTISTS: no one I've ever heard.
Those of you looking at the track listing may be wondering "Why would they bother to make such stupid names?". Look now. The answer comes later. I took the liberty of finding a definition for the word 'Threnody' and it means the following: 'a song of lamentation for the dead', and that actually seems to fit. Well ok then.
I bought this album during NEARFest 2001 because I liked the picture (and you know, sometimes the best Prog is the kind that you never knew existed), not that I would have bothered if it wasn't in a Prog box. Another topic about After Forever is whether or not they are ever Prog or not. I won't bother to answer (half of you will agree, the other half will disagree) but I will say that it certainly SOUNDS progressive. This band likes to play with an opera-quality female voice and that Demon thing from Tubular Bells. They don't sing simultaniously (Thank God) but they usually share songs, each singing a portion. The style is dark, but not sad, and a constant litany, almost a dirge. The whole thing is a THRENODY. I might have used a thesaurus. The use of obscure english is often less impressive than it is annoying.
The only problem I have for this CD is that I'm always reminded of that black-fingernailed kid. He was usually quiet but sometimes he would say something that would seem profound if anyone else had thought of it, but you know that he just spent the last 10 minutes formulating how to portray it to us in his head. Often enough he would forget one of the lines and then pretend like he wasn't being a jerk the whole time. I hate that. Anyways, if you treat this more like an indulgence instead of like the art of someone's soul, you ought to enjoy it more.
PS: This review applies to After Forever's second album, Decipher and probably also to their upcoming project. But really, both are good, and the third also will be good.
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| TRACKS |
CREDITS
(click to view performer credits) |
PROGGNOSIS SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
(click to view Release Page) |
- Mea Culpa
- Leaden Legacy
- Semblance of Confusion
- Black Tomb
- Follow in the Cry
- Silence from Afar
- Inimical Chimera
- Tortuous Threnody
- Yield to Temptation
- Ephemeral
- Beyond Me
- Wings of Illusion
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