Cognitive Dissonance

It's taken me a year to finally pen a review for this album. Not because of lack of inspiration, but because Darkside actually makes good use of the title of their album. Cognitive Dissonance is the conflict with one's own morals and actions. It can also be described as seeing something wrong with something but not being able to pinpoint exactly what it is that's wrong.

That's the problem with this album. It's an excellent album. Several playthroughs have proven that. However the album is not perfect. Unfortunately finding the flaws proves difficult. Darkside is described as a melodic death metal band. Cognitive Dissonance is more of a dark metal CD with touches of Death Metal and some industrial metal undertones. Songs like "Hymm For the Chosen Ones" are far from death metal. Save for the vocals. The guitars, drums, bass, and keys sound more darkmetal than death metal.

The other songs don't step much into the death metal realm. Of course several of the songs rely on the low tuned growl of singing, riffs that are lowtuned and sometimes thrashpetitive. Also much like death metal the bass is heard pretty well. Nothing remarkable. The drums stray from the death metal double bassing norm, and often follow a differant rthym from the guitars, that actually works.

So the style of music isn't the problem. Could it be because some of the songs, and lyrics are just damn cheesy? "Caress of the Sleeping Giant" invokes horrid images of giants...yeah let's not go there.

The theme of this album seems to be about the Elder Gods. Despite my lack of knowledge about the subject I would think that the Elder Gods would demand true death metal and not a hybrid of dark metal mixed with death and industrial. Does this concern ruin the album? No.

So what's wrong with this album? Why can't I give it higher than a 92? By all intents and purposes I should be giving this album a 100, but I can't.

There's something wrong with it, and I can't find it.

Score 92/100

Austria's Darkside play dark and gloomy melodic death metal. They have a fairly unique sound and are very talented indeed. However, I don't think this release is as good as it could be. There are several good songs on the album, but too much of it seems like filler.

After a short intro the track "Legend of the Gods" begins. This is decent song, and also a good way to start the album as it represents the bands overall sound. "h.e.d.e.s.e." is another interesting song with lots of dark, keyboard laden riffing and a nice melodic chorus.

Next is the title track which is ok but not great. It has some decent riffs but there isn't anything special. "The Fallen" is also kind of boring and monotonous. Then we come to "F.i.f.t.h.", which is my favorite track on the album. Lots of good, strong riffs and some cool alternating vocals during the chorus. If only there were more songs on the album like this.

The next three songs are kind boring in my opinion. There isn't really anything interesting about them, except for some interesting drunken sounding choir vocals during "Hymn for the Chosen Ones". "Bloodbound" is another good track, and certainly the fastest and heaviest song on the album. Then theres another intro titled "s.w.i.h"(whats with all the acronyms) that leads into the final track "Pontifex 666" which is a pretty good way to close the album as it is one of the better tracks.

This album is kind of disappointing. There are far to many weak tracks to keep it interesting. The songs that are good are impressive, but there aren't enough of them.This band definetly has a great album in them, but this certainly isn't it. Hopefully they will reach their potential on a later release.