The Last Horizon

It's frustrating, but more then often amusing when you watch, or hear about bands that make really terrible decisions. It may be Disillusion getting rid of all their epic metal and releasing Gloria. It may be Ulver dropping their black metal and going all weird (that was good, though..) Perhaps the best example is Nightwish forming, and then releasing an album. Why am I going on about this then? Because Transcending Mortality made a really terrible choice of their own: They let the keyboard player sing.

Transcending Mortality's music is for the most part decent, if mediocre and cliched power metal, and there's nothing too wrong with that. The riffs are melodic but not too memorable.. it's early Metallica, filtered through a power metal aesthetic, and that's ok. The guitars aren't too wanky, which is good. The keys are very minimalistic and surprisingly tasteful, and the lead guitars, while stunningly mediocre and boring, don't offend. The rythym section doesn't show off and sticks to holding things down.. and that's cool.

Yeah, the instruments are boring, but inoffensive. If the vocals were good, this record might get 50 or 60%. But the vocals are absolutely freaking terrible, and make this album an excruciating listen. The guys voice is bearable when he doesn't try to go operatic, but when he does.. damn, he's terrible. His voice lacks any semblance of power or strength, and he often goes out of tune. He'd work fine in a emo band, but he sounds really terrible here, and it makes the songs really hard to take. These vocals make me nostalgic for Nightwish vocals. IT IS THAT BAD. For a very good example, give Veil of Midnight a listen- although every other song is terrible too.

So, what we have here is some cliched, mediocre power metal, with some of the worst vocals you've ever heard. Without the vocals I'd give this a 50 or so. But the vocals are disgusting, so it gets a 25%.