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Atrox > Mesmerised > Reviews
Atrox - Mesmerised

A Mind's Escape - 75%

TheUnhinged, November 7th, 2014
Written based on this version: 1997, CD, Head Not Found

Atrox is an experimental metal band from Norway that has been around for a little over twenty years now. Their earliest demo releases showed them playing a morbid and funeral-paced death/doom metal, which lied close to the likes of Cathedral and Funeral. Upon the arrival of Monika Edvardsen, the band began to explore more progressive and technical palettes; evolving into a wacky avant-garde direction on their second release Contentum. This first album saw the band pursuing a style that was growing popular in Europe at the time; doom metal riffs with clean female singing, harsh male vocals, and heavy use of clean guitars and keyboards.

The music here shares a lot of similarities with Anathema's second album, The Silent Enigma; aggressive mid-paced riffs, loads of gloomy leads, raspy grunted vocals, simple song structures, an overall downbeat and depressed ambiance, and a lot of calm atmospheric interludes. The rhythm guitars have a very crunchy, rough tone, while the leads drift on with fluid and slick sounding melodies. The bass is prominent and bouncy, nearly grooving at a few points (particularly the coda of 'Steeped in Misery As I Am'). The drums have a crisp and slightly subdued quality to them, being mostly emerged deep in the guitars. Clean and acoustic guitars are also used very liberally throughout the album, typically in harmony with the distorted guitars. They sound very spacey and oceanic, much like the guitar effects used in The 3rd and the Mortal's early work. Odd effects are used on these guitars, as well as on Gersa's voice to make it sound deeper and more booming. The experimental aspect that would dominate the band's later albums are kept fairly subtle, aside from an odd trip-hop track entitled 'A Minds Escape' which, surprisingly enough, fits in quite nicely with the metal-oriented tracks.

As I mentioned before, the vocals consist of male grunts and female singing, which was a thing that bands like Theatre of Tragedy and Tristania were becoming well known for at the time. Things are done a bit differently in this case, in terms of both vocalists. Gersa's voice isn't a typical death grunt, but rather a straining raspy scream (as well as poetic spoken vocals on occasion). Personally, his voice really drags the music down for me. I get that the band was still tapering off of the death metal elements of their early works, but his growls are pretty grating and lack the depth and power that would have potentially worked here. I feel some deep grunts could have possibly fit, but quite frankly, I feel using only clean vocals would have really been the best option for this album.

As for Monika's singing, it's really a give-or-take (which, let's face it, all of Atrox's music works that way). Her parts are limited to the calm and clean sections, while Gersa's vocals dominate the heavy parts. Her singing here mostly consists of chanting and slowly drawn-out lyrics. There's no crazy squealing or yelping that would pop up on Atrox's later outputs, but there is still some odd Middle Eastern-like style chants that border on outright ululating (such as in the interlude on final track 'Hinc Allae la Crimae'). While her style here is certainly more interesting and original than the typical sweet soprano counterparts of melodic metal bands, I have to say I don't think it fits with the style played on this album either. It's perfect for the later albums, and even sounds good on the aforementioned 'A Mind's Escape', but for the majestic and depressive sounding doom metal of the other tracks, it just feels out of place. I'll even go as far as to admit I think I would have liked it better had she pursued the more melodic and less dramatic style that Kari Rueslatten or Anneke van Giersbergen had been doing at the time.

Overall, I actually really enjoy this album. I feel the guitars (clean and distorted), bass, and atmosphere really steal the show and redeem the music of its less suitable vocalists. Each of the stringed instruments provides its own distinctive layer that weaves in flawlessly with the others and can be easily identified by the listener. The melodies successfully alternate between being epic and uplifting, with being harrowing and miserable. The intense moods and progressions of these melodies alone make the album worthy of recommendation to those who enjoy accessible yet aggressive doom metal; particularly the guitar-driven tunes of October Tide, The 3rd and the Mortal, and perhaps Amorphis.

Standout tracks: Steeped in Misery As I Am, A Minds Escape, and Hinc Allae la Crimae