Want another dose of synth-filled black metal? Then this might be for you. Tidfall's debut goes down the same road as Dimmu Borgir's newer records: synths, more synths, and then some synths. No, really, I'm starting to get fed up with metal records with a lot of synths. Some can make 'em work, some don't. Tidfall belong to the ever growing bunch of latter ones. The synths steal space from guitars and make this record sound too full. And those synth melodies ain't at all original.

But let's move on. The thing that made me want to check the band out was the album's great looking cover (some cosmic (?) things going on). When I hit the play button, I knew this might not be what I expected (which was some stellar darkness, I quess). About guitars: the riffs are ugly, but I really wonder if they are original, even in smallest possible way?! And this feeling continues through the whole album. I have heard all this before, for many, many times! Add some ugly black vocals and bombastic drums and majesctic kind of production. Can you get what I mean? Yeah, I thought so. The lyrics are also quite usual stuff for this kind of music.

This is not the worst album in its genre, but hardly interesting. I don't know if this would be a good album without synths, but I know it would be better. Come on, try something new, all you synth-filled black metal bands!!!

Rating: 3½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
12/30/2001 14:48