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Review: Xerath - I
Xerath
www.xerath.net
I

Label: Candlelight Records
Year released: 2009
Duration: 39:33
Tracks: 10
Genre: Unclassifiable

Rating:
2.5/5


Review online: October 2, 2009
Reviewed by: Michel Renaud
Readers' Rating
How do you rate this release?

Rated 2.6/5 (52%) (10 Votes)
Review

Talk about melting pot. Xerath throw a lot of stuff in I – Death, Progressive, Gothic, symphonic, groove (think Meshuggah – that's not a good thing), all served with a rather bland technical sauce. I've given this quite a few spins over the past little while and still can't find much of interest – this is the kind of technical, somewhat wankery stuff that some musicians may like for the instrumental prowess scattered here and there, but when it comes down to the music, the songs, this is not all that great. It's messy, kind of incoherent, and doesn't really go anywhere.

That said, if you pick just passages here and there, you'll find some pretty good bits and pieces, be it a few metallic moments such as thrashy solos, or more atmospheric parts using sound effects and/or symphonic elements. It's the "putting it all together" that fails here, as far as I'm concerned. A few parts even sound like what you hear in some annoying interludes on TV… Ouch.

There's an audience for this kind of stuff, but it is mostly for those who like to boast how they are distancing themselves from metal or other open-minded jerk-off nonsense. To these people, I say: Go for it, this is your thing and for the genre, this is OK, though you'll be hard pressed to find anything you haven't heard before. For the more "pure metal"-minded individuals however, move along: there's nothing to see here.

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