SERPENTIA
Dark Fields Of Pain
(Metal Mind Productions)
41:36min

Well – let’s divide this review into two dimensions. Firstly, I intend to express my viewpoint concerning this release in a proper journalistic, thus objective way. That’ll be the first approach to tackle this CD. Then, I shall express my personal, thus subjective point of view. OK, let’s hit it … this CD definitely is outstanding regarding its production quality, the high standard musicianship and the arrangements ideas. I appreciate professionalism – and this criterion certainly is fulfilled here. Each musician does a good job, I reckon. I don’t really want to highlight any components actually… but now that I think about it: I think the bassist plays interesting lines, kind of playful and filigree. The lead-guitarists play quite melodious soloing… delightfully intricate and multi-layered. So that is cool as well. I like the usage of 7-string guitars. This sonorous sound of the additional b-string is just awesome! The riffs strike me as being influenced by acts such as DEATH, IN FLAMES, maybe a bit of NEVERMORE here and there, definitely AT THE GATES and the likes. That means the sound of SERPENTIA can be described as a vibrant combination of Death, Thrash and Black Metal influences – a fact observable not least because of the alternating vocal presentation of a rather Black Metal-like sounding luni and a Death Metal grunter. I think you’re in the picture now, right? All these characteristics can be traced quite well in the second track of this output, a song called ‘Consciousness Of The Beyond’. I like this track – it is very compact, stuffed with intriguing ideas, good soloing, interesting arrangements, etc. Alright then – now for the subjective points. Well, partly they kind of crept into the part above already anyway. But let me state a few things here. I personally am not sort of damn-keen on this kind of music ’cause it lacks innovation, which to me is essential to music in general. These guys regurgitate old ingredients and present it as something new. Well, it’s ok to preserve and maintain a certain Metal tradition. But I just don’t find that very appealing if you know what I mean. OK… I assume I am on thin ice now… the discussion concerning innovation in Metal is tedious anyway, so I better stop writing about it here. Conclusion – this SERPENTIA offer good quality, the booklet looks alright, the length of the output is reasonable, the musicianship is cool, the production as well. Definitely reasons to support this band, I think. But, as mentioned above, it doesn’t quite appeal to my taste. That’s all for now… tata… so long… cheers…

F. Cthulhu E.

F. Cthulhu E.

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