Taphos

I'm not entirely convinced that, minus the swarthy Velvet Cacoon-inspired production, Drastus would be anything more than what you typically hear from bedroom one-man black metal projects the world over. It has its points of esoteric weirdness: the kind of odd, seemingly accidental drum programming with its trilling cymbals, the abbreviated intro tracks that aren't just stretches of bland ambiance, or the kind of shifting, more organic than normal riff structures, but none of this really assures me that Drastus is so much better than any other 19 year old kids clutching cheap guitars at home. It's cute and kind of well composed but ultimately I don't understand what people are getting so excited over.

I've heard plenty of lo-fi, ambient black metal, and this is relatively par for the course: highly repetitive riffing (though the repetition is hard to make out with the cloudy guitar tone a lot of the time), blasting drum machine, screechy, occasional vocals. I guess the more organic riffcraft is a notch above what you usually hear; the riffs sort of move like tropical fish, floating in place before darting somewhere else after a held tremolo chord or short fill. It's an interesting technique if hardly unprecedented in underground black metal, and while it does speak to a greater sense of songwriting and ambition than usual, it's only structurall significant as the riffing style itself is lifted from all sorts of other French/Norwegian/Swedish bands out there. Oddly enough, this afflicts a lot of this release: it's structurally interesting but the content itself never really grabs me in a significant way. It's as though Drastus was attempting to throw off some of the shackles of underground black metal songwriting but forgot about the core of the music itself. Creating structurally interesting music is important, but unlike making structurally plain music with very strong riffs and individual elements, it doesn't really work backwards, so you're left with something that's kind of intriguing but ultimately not very fulfilling.

I can't say that this is too ambitious for its own good since it essentially succeeds at what it's doing, but I'm not as taken by it as some people are. I'd point out Vrolok as a very similar artist that does the same thing but much better; there's a lot of good points about this release but it doesn't coalesce into something greater. Maybe this would be stronger as a full-length where the ideas have more opportunity to develop, but honestly this feels a little too choppy and disconnected for even that to improve it. Ultimately this is a curiosity that isn't going to get a whole lot of listens from me; I appreciate the sentiment but all the ambition in the world doesn't make up for music which is ultimately not especially interesting.

This is an EP from Drastus, a French one-man band playing black/ambient metal.

The sound on this record is somewhat distant and muffled, sort of your typical "raw black metal" production. That said, it certainly fits the music, and the guitar sound is heavy enough to keep things from getting boring. The vocals are snarled and kept somewhat low in the mix, and the drums sound computer-generated to me.

The first track, "Flow Divine", is the album's epic. It starts out with some militant-sounding ambient stuff. Not bad, but nothing special. Fortunately, the metal part of this track is a lot better. The riffing here is squarely in the mid-period Darkthrone tradition, with several vicious variations on a theme. I especially like the layering of guitar and vocals -- there's a lot going on in this track, making the soundscape a little deeper than one might expect.

"Columns of Decline pt.I" is a guitar instrumental. Again, some cool layering. The rhythm guitar part here is quite drum-like in its relentless pounding. The echoing guitar at the end is also neat.

"Columns of Decline pt.II" is a short blast-fest with some surprisingly stately guitar work. It segues into "Sacrifice for the Unity of Flames pt.I", a short horror-movie intro to the next track.

The opening pick-slide of "Sacrifice for the Unity of Flames pt.II" sounds huge! This one alternates between fast and mid-paced sections. I rather prefer the slow parts -- they remind me of Inquisition -- but the blasting sections are also good. The vocals really come into their own during this song.

There's really only enough in "Taphos" for three full-length songs, but fortunately those three songs are pretty good. The artist strikes a fine balance between dark atmosphere and metal, and even though the whole record is only twenty minutes long, the songs are complicated enough to leave on repeat for a couple of hours without fear of boredom. If you like ambient black metal with a bit of meat to it, this is worth hearing. Recommended.

Standout tracks: "Flow Divine", "Sacrifice for the Unity of Flames pt.II"
Review by vorfeed: http://www.vorfeed.net