Illumination

Illumination is the fifth full length release by Tristania, one of Norway's most prominent gothic metal bands. By now most people know the story; that Veland was responsible for putting them on the map, but decided to leave, causing them to go downhill, etc. While I'm one of those who believes he was the best thing to ever happen to Tristania, I'm also not about to discard their later releases as pure rubbish. No indeed, World of Glass, Ashes, and Illumination all offer something new and different, and all three are quality albums in their own right. With respect to Illumination; however, I feel they had a good idea in mind, but fell just a tad short on execution.

Throughout Illumination's running time it becomes painfully obvious Tristania was not shooting for complexion; instead, all songs have a much more slow, mellow, and simple structure. I'm refraining from the word basic because that is a major misnomer here. The reason behind that is simple; it all boils down to song structure. When approached from that viewpoint, there's nothing basic about the songs present on Illumination. The rhythm-setting drums, guitars, keyboards (What little there are) and bass all meld perfectly together to create simple yet effective melodies in each song. To reinforce this bold statement, I offer any track found at the last half of the album.

Vibeke Stene's vocals excited me most. She, like many other vocalists in the genre, has continued to evolve her voice in such a way that it effectively steers away from that quasi-operatic, choir like voice and actually starts to sing. I loved it dearly, to be sure, but it grows old after awhile, and there's no way in hell her old vocal style would fit with Ashes or Illumination. Songs such as Sanguine Sky, Lotus, and Mercyshide showcase her new style best; that hauntingly sexy voice you'd love to have sing you to sleep. While others, such as Destination Departure and Deadlands, focus more on her classic style of singing; that quasi-operatic voice you could picture... well, I'll spare you the innuendo.

The male vocals, done by Osten Bergoy, are also very well performed. My only disappointment is the lack of growling. Unlike Tristania's previous albums, growling is virtually non existent. The harshest male vocals hover somewhere between high pitched rasping, found on parts of Mercyside and The Ravens. However, I can't complain about the clean sections, especially on Fate, where they're above and beyond.

Both vocalists do their parts very well, but how about the lyrics they're actually singing? They carry the typical bleak and dreary gothic feel, but do they really hold up? I don't think so, at least with the first half of the album, especially on Mercyside, Sanguine Sky, and Open Ground. The verses and chorus' both feel like they're straight out of a b-side movie, no joke. I understand the emotional distress trying to be portrayed, but for Christ's sake ease up on the masochism! On the opposing end exist songs like Fate, Lotus, and Deadlands, which have your usual Tristania bleakness; the appropriate feel.. In fact, we're basically dividing the album in half: The masochistic side and the genuinely bleak side.

Hence why I say Illumination falls ever so short of the regard I hold Tristania in. This would be an exceptional release under your average band, but Tristania have been nothing but above average since their debut. I'm all for a change in style, especially to something slower and more dramatic, but not at the sake of musical perfection. They started out with a good idea, a good goal, but simply didn't make it for whatever reasons. Perhaps they'll nail it with their next release? Every band releases an album not quite up to par at some point, so why should they be any different?

Regardless, Illumination isn't something fans should ignore. Of the eleven songs present, Mercyside, Open Ground, and The Ravens fall below par, while Fate, Lotus, and Sanguine Sky stand out the most. Everything else is average; not amazing, but not as bad as those mentioned. Strangers to Tristania, or gothic metal in general, might want to be wary; this won't convert you to either.

After the Katatonian 'Ashes', Many fans of Tristania had lost some hope. Like Theatre of Tragedy before them another Norwegian gothic metal band had changed their style from epic chorus and operatic vocals into something different. Though Tristania had the decency not to turn electropop on us, I myself began to lose interest. The first track and single "Mercyside" suggested that Illumination would continue the same trend but with 'Sanguine Sky', Tristania was rebron, not back to their early sound but into somehting I had never heard before. Illumination is a different sort of gothic metal: Not gothic in the sense of their early work but gothic in the sense of gothic rock like Siouxsie or Christian Death's finest work.

The sound is completely unique, encompasing some tracks with an Ashes sound and others with little trace of metal at all, only genuinely great music that seems tailor made to show off Vibeke's voice. This album seems like her going away present, tracks like Sanguine Sky, Destination Departure, and the cripplingly depressing Deadlands show off her voice like no album before or, sadly, to come. Even the artwork reveals her at her most beautiful, making her exit from the band all the harder to bear.

But I digress: This is some great music, and it comes with great variety. Amid that gothic rock and metal mixture are songs with mellow grooves and rapid harsh bursts, Mercyside and Sacreilege maintain some semblence of brutality and heavy metal tone, while Sanguine Sky and Fate (A song with all male vocals in which Osten comes into his own, with a dash of David Bowie in his voice) are less metal and more gothic with hints of what used to be the band's prime properties. Deadlands and Destination Departure are again tailored purely to showcase the operatic vocals that Ashes suffered from lacking. The other songs round out the new style with some variety, offering truly unique and new material that fills the album with texture, poetic sense, and above all the painfully sad and cathartic gauntlet of music that marks the end of Tristania's first era. A good, solid album.

Don't listen to it when you're depressed, you'll kill yourself.

Some may tell you that Tristania just aren't Tristania anymore. And in some ways, it's true -- Tristania hasn't been the same since Morten Veland [Sirenia] left after their second full-length. Many die-hard gothic metal fans have lamented over this loss, and have taken the easy way out by deeming anything post-Morten as total and utter rubbish. While I cannot take the same standpoint, I can agree that Tristania is going downhill with each album they release. Post-Morten, I really enjoyed World of Glass. At Ashes, I began to question the band's intentions. But it was with the release of this album, Illumination, where I really began to wonder -- "What are they doing?"

Illumination is very much in the vein of the preceding album, Ashes, but with much more filler. At most times, the music is hardly engaging, and it's quite easy to confuse one song for another. Most of the vocal lines fit in very awkwardly, as if they made the laziest attempt possible to fit their pre-written lyrics into the music. There are hardly any memorable riffs or melodies in any of the songs, save for "Mercyside," "Sacrilege," and "Down."

Musicianship-wise, this is another group where the skills of the instrumentalists are not very important. The guitar & bass riffs are quite simple, and the drumming, while it keeps a good rhythm, is very basic. One of the biggest disappointments for me was the lack of keyboard parts. The vocals are at their finest, but would have shined much more if there were more complex and difficult vocal lines.

And as great as a male vocalist Osten Bergoy is, his lyrics still irk me to no end. At times, they are nearly identical to generic angst poetry I was writing in middle school ["Name me, use me, blame me / Every time you hurt / Your favors are not what I deserve"].

But as with most any album, Illumination still has its positives, as few as they may be. Tracks such as "Down," "Lotus" and "Deadlands" shine brilliantly among the the other lackluster songs. However, I don't see such brilliance as this in Tristania's future.

First of all, I have been listening to Tristania since World of Glass came out and, at the time, I felt that Widow’s Weeds was their best album. Over the years, my taste has greatly changed. I have found that my taste has changed as Tristania has changed. A lot of you may not want to hear this, but bands change and listeners change. Illumination has a very grown up sound. It’s not a bad sound, just a more mature sound.

With Kjetil gone, Tristania isn’t the same band. As a group they had to decide what to do and they chose to use less harsh vocals. Vibeke got her chance to shine on this album. Everything about this album is more lush because it’s a more intimate album. With that being said, there are still the heavy songs we’ve loved in the past.

Illumination has more production quality and experimentation than the past albums, and that’s not a bad thing. The layered vocals just sound phenomenal. The instruments are also more separated and cleaner sounding. This album has much more dynamic range in the male vocals as well.

I know that many of you cringe at the thought of your favorite band stirring things up, but it’s going to happen. Illumination does not sound like Widow’s Weeds because it is now nine years later. If you go and listen to every Tristania CD back to back, Illumination makes all the sense in the world.

I will agree with someone who posted before, saying that there is no climax. That is a good point. The end just kind of creeps up and doesn’t really complete the album. Sacrilege would have actually ended this album perfectly. A little reorganization of the songs would have fixed this issue.

This album definitely has a few improvements over some of the recordings, which have been quoted as being “masterpieces”. It doesn’t have the annoying electronic drum sound that is so undeniable on Beyond the Veil and World of Glass. I was so happy when I listened to Ashes and Illumination and didn’t hear that. Beyond the Veil and World of Glass have a bit of an industrial sound to them, and that may be something that attracts other people, but it only pushed me away a bit. Tristania is a band that I like hearing quality recordings of.

For those of you who say that Morten Veland made Tristania great, I’d have to disagree. Beyond the Veil still gets buried in my collection. Heretique is one of the only songs on that album that I really like. As for Widow’s Weeds, as I listen to it now, it sounds very amateurish. The sound quality was lacking and they sounded like an average gothic metal band. We can all see that each of the members has improved in their musicianship as time goes by.

Over all this CD is a definite must have for anyone. I can see this being a very universal album. There are aspects that make this album enjoyable for people with varying tastes. This may be the album that boosts Tristania to a higher standing.

That's my favorite verse from one of the highlights of Tristania new masterpiece; "Illumination". Although it's not as good as "World of Glass" or "Beyond the Veil", I still think that they tried their best.

"Illumination" is Tristania's lightest and mellowest work. Songs are very serene and easy to listen to. It is the furthest away Tristania has ever gone from metal. Don't get me wrong, some songs are pretty decent headbangers ("Mercyside", for example), but only a few tracks have that metal feel to them. The rest of the songs are folk-rock, rather than metal. However, I still prefer their new mellow sound, rather than the black metal style they had going on "Ashes".

Vocals are the strong point of the album. Both Vibeke and Osten are amazing. Songs like “Open Ground” and “The Ravens” contain awesome duets between the two. On “Destination Departure” you can hear the amazing voice of Vibeke, while on “Fate” you can hear Osten take on a whole song on his own. As for harsh vocals; they’re barely heard. I personally found that to be the only disappointing aspect of the album since I always viewed Tristania as the band with amazing equilibrium between three different vocalists.

With the exception of “Down”, which is a bit too commercial, all songs are great. If I had to pick highlights, they’d have to be “Mercyside”, “Lotus” and “Sacrilege”.

So, in conclusion, it's a very good album. It's probably my third favorite Tristania album, right after "World of Glass" and "Beyond the Veil". It's also the album I'd recommend to new fans of Tristania since it's very easy to listen to.

Important: My version of “Illumination” contains only ten tracks, so anything I wrote doesn’t apply to “In the Wake”.

After I read that Vorphalack from Samael will be doing most of the harsh vocals on “Illumination” (because of the departure of Kjetil Ingebrethsen) I expected a great album. Their previous works are astounding to say the least, especially the grand “Ashes” which pretty much sums up all the best these Nordics know and puts it under the sign of the superlative. It never occurred to me that even with such a good line-up they might just not better “Ashes”. Because, well, they didn’t… and that left me quite disappointed.

Tristania is undoubtedly a talented band, but this album really fails to impress. Vorph’s vocals are present only on a few songs, you can barely hear the guy on this album. And the fact that they put good Vibeke on the cover of the album really means something: this album is practically her’s. She’s doing about 50% of the vocals and that’s a bit too much for some folks, myself included. Not that I don’t like her, she’s a great vocal. But Tristania was about diversity.

Tristania was guitars, violins, 3 vocals all firing on all cylinders on all songs. “Illumination” sounds like Vibeke and a rock band. Violins are all but gone, keyboards can barely be heard and harsh vocals are scarce. Still, it’s not a softer Tristania, granted. The album is heavy (exception “Destination Departure”, but “Ashes” also had its “Cure” and “World Of Glass” its “Deadlocked”). So this is indeed a change of style and for this attempt, I must applaud the band.

Unfortunately, the change is not for the good, at least not as far as I’m concerned. As I see things, this is the worst album Tristania put out. Ever. Even so, I do like it... but compared to their older works… erm… it simply doesn’t hold together. I still hope that they’ll get back in the studio as soon as possible and return with a masterpiece that’ll make “Ashes” seem like a standard debut album.

All in all, “Illumination” is good but just not up to the standard which Tristania imposed on themselves. It’s their fault after all. Perhaps if they made crapier music, this would have been great...

I've been looking forward to this album for quite sometime now having quite enjoyed "World of Glass" and "Ashes". Tristania's latest opus however doesn't live up to expectations. Tristania play a goth-tinted symphonic metal with a strong female lead singer in Vibeke Stenne. It is in this figure-head that Tristania have both their strongest and weakest element.

Let me elaborate. After quite a few spins this album has presented me with the same problem as "Ok Nefna Tysvar Ty" by the enigmatic Falkenbach. The aforementioned and "Illuminations" are both outstanding pieces of work but are they really metal. "Ok Nefna Tysvar Ty" was a great album but it wouldn't have looked out of place in the Folk section of a music store. "Illuminations" presents the same problem. As usual Vibeke's voice is stunning, she carries each song with her well-established vocals in command always. But with a couple of exceptions this album seems like a showcase for her voice alone. The guitars are understated and the drums even more so through-out. I'm not saying this is a bad thing but it's not very "metal" in the sense that we know it. The song "Destination Departure" wouldn't look out of place on a Massive Attack album.

There are moments when it picks up however. The second track "Sanguine Sky" is old Tristania at their best with the guitar and bass getting a bit of leg-room and Vibeke accompanying them as she should be rather than dominating. Also the slow but maintained "Down" is another highlight with the guitar getting heavier and more pronounced. Apart from these two tracks the album is a study in mellow goth-rock and never really kicks off.

Having said all this however I will add that despite the generic musicianship Vibeke's voice remains the pivotal element that makes it worthwhile to pick this album up in itself. Her voice makes me want to pick up a copy of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" just so I can read it with this in the background.

In conclusion then I would say this is essential for any dedicated fans of Tristania or fans of Goth-tinged rock. But if you're looking for a good Symphonic Metal album then it's time to peruse Dark Moor's back catalogue.