Saturday, August 31, 2013

Armaroth - "False Vision" (2013)

Self – released EP (June 6th 2013)

Line – up (2007):     Filip Kosnik – vocals;
                                  Klemen Govekar – guitar;
                                  Martin Jagodic – guitar;
                                  Dino Rebolj – bass;
                                  Andrej Gregorc – drums.

Location:                  Kranj (Slovenia).

Better song the EP:

“Labyrinth of Greed”.

Better feature of the band:

Its wickedness combined with an elaborated songs’ structure and a good tendency to the experimentations.
Guys, it’s a very strange thing but all the Slovenian bands that were reviewed on these pages have never disappoint my expectations, releasing remarkable albums (in particular, I must remember “Queen of the Midnight Fire” of the Vigilance, while the first ones were the thrashers Panikk). Hence, the Armaroth are the third band of these young and worthy series, they are the more extreme than the other acts but also the less prolific, since they released only two productions, “False Vision” included, in 6 years of existence.

The Armaroth, into the 4 tracks + intro per 19 minutes of bombardments that characterizes “False Vision”, plays a very wicked death metal that is rich enough of surprises and contaminations with other genres, that are, in this case, the brutal death (above all during the mid – slow tempos) and the thrash metal (like in “Cell That We Bleed In”) that is useful to inject a contagious groove to the entire music. The approach adopted by the band is a combination between the old and new school, alternating angry blast – beats with a bit more refined rhythmic solutions, do not forgetting the devastating tupa – tupas that are here and there in the EP. However, the massive and almost “robotic” opening track titled “Modern Man” is focused on the mid – tempos, so the Armaroth seems to be a band more heavy than fast during the first impressions. The technique is very good but, for example, the guitar solos are almost completely absent, except the particular and strangely melodic solo of “Labyrinth of Greed”.

In fact, the Armaroth search the sonic particularities with a good frequence. For example, these guys uses even some minimalist keyboards, so to make some moments of “Modern Man” in a more frightful and wicked way, while some passages of “Cell That We Bleed In” are “Egyptians” and mysterious, with the guitars that adapts perfectly to these shifts of atmosphere. But, as it is obvious, the keyboards are used in a very rare way and just during some strategic points. Anyway, these experimentations, a riffing at times dissonant or enigmatic included, leaves good hopes for the future.

I must mention also the songs’ structure, that is usually well – elaborated and rich of tempo shifts, all the more so because the Armaroth have sometimes a complexity closed enough to the technical death metal (“Labyrinth of Greed”). But, anyway, their songs follow some precise musical sequences, giving the impression that the band doesn’t want to lost the sense of the musical discourse, considering that the tracks are usually 4 – 5 minutes long, so they are difficult to manage in a easy way. But “Cell That We Bleed In” is the less free and more sequencial song of the entire demo.

The vocals surprises as regard the wickedness. They are characterized principally by deep growls and these ones are doubled at times by diabolic screams. The singer is technically very good, since, for example, his abilities to pass from the growls to hysterical screams with an excellent fluidity (“Cell That We Bleed In”), so to inject more profoundness to the assault.
In brief, I don’t find real flaws into this demo, the band know how kick the ass. But the Armaroth could improve their assault using the lead guitar in a better way (and not only to vomit solos), since it is really important in “Labyrinth of Greed”, that could be the reference song for the future. Besides this, “False Vision” has a very good production, it’s clean and powerful and with all the instruments at their own place. What more can I say? Oh yeah, BUY THIS DEMO, FUCK!

Voto: 80

Flavio “Claustrofobia” Adducci

Tracklist:

1 – False Vision (intro)/ 2 – Modern Man/ 3 – High/ 4 – Labyrinth of Greed/ 5 – Cell That We Bleed In

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