You really got to like carnival/circus/Vaudeville music to start to listen to this! The third album from Italian weirdos And Harmony Dies (formerly known as Harmony Dies) is an extravagant piece of avant-garde metal. It goes much further than, say, Arcturus' 1997 classic 'La Masquerade Infernale'. Being closer to Austrian one-man project Chryst, this album really is an obstacle to fathom.

While that Arcturus album won me over (and Chryst did not), it's always a big hardship for me to listen to music with carnival music bits. Often, I simply find it very annoying. Gladly this influence isn't a dominant trait here. Any way, just like Chryst, AHD also contains bad-sounding MIDI programming and comedic vocals. MIDI sounds old and lame, it's not about bad programming or composing itself (I guess creating strings section was never so easy with MIDI...). Swedish weirdo Oxiplegatz's albums from 1990's sound similar. Some of the "jester" vocals kind of remind me of Monty Python's Flying Circus, but without humour. The vocals include various styles, such as black metal rasp, deep clean gothic ones (think of Tiamat's) and various dramatic styles, which almost all sound like "jester".

Metal music styles included are black, gothic and progressive. The songs often twist and turn very, very often, like a few times in one minute (try 'Birthday'). Black metal bits aren't violent, but more like melodic and catchy; not unlike Cradle Of Filth's. That comfortably takes us to gothic metal elements, which vary from symphonic to more simplistic ones. The bass guitar is one of the highlight things of the album, being sometimes similar with Steve DiGiorgio's use of fretless bass guitar. Another rather dominant music style is dark wave pop heard every now and then. In conclusion, the music here is a mishmash of a lot of things. It often sounds bloody cool, but then again, it is also sounds like a lot of bad decisions were made.

The album's story tell about a man following his madame to death. It shows how absurd life can sometimes be. And music... 'Totenamt' is too absurd and lunatic for my liking. It just cannot find its red thread. If it even has one. Maybe it has too many of them! If Oxiplegatz and Chryst are for your liking, I bet you'd enjoy this trip, too. It is one of those albums, that need time to get into, but one might not get into it even with repeated listenings. I know I couldn't. That is why I think it has something more fundamentally wrong with it.

Rating: 4½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
08/15/2016 18:36