My Frozen Dream Slept Too Eternally...

With a name like Anwech, I thought at first these guys might be Welsh but they're from Italy instead. Anwech present here four long songs of slow and repetitive melodic doom-paced black metal. As the shortest song on this album falls a minute shy of nine minutes long, the big challenge for the duo is to maintain a strong identity for each song while introducing enough variety into the music to keep the audience on track. One way of doing this is to tackle each song as if it's an epic work in itself that deserves its own EP release. The intro track "Strongest Nocturnal Silence" is of this nature: it establishes itself firmly with distinctive riffs played like choruses. The guitar sound is fairly raw but not constantly buzzing so there is plenty of clean space through the song, giving it a solemn air that demands your attention. About halfway through a quiet acoustic section that encourages introspection of a depressive sort is introduced. The track then works towards a mini-climax which turns out to be the main riff. keyboards add a tragic heroic quality to the music. Vocals are meant to be in pain and constantly wailing but instead end up haranguing the listener. The song has grandeur of a solemn and sometimes intensely emotion nature and avoids melodrama.

The singing is the weakest element on this album: consolation is that it's far back in the mix with a fair amount of reverb so the nagging quality is less than what it would be otherwise. Picture someone locking up the nuisance mother-in-law in a big empty vault far underground so she starts yelling to be let out - that's what the Anwech vocals are like. On the first half of the album at least the music is strong and varied enough that the vocals can be treated as a minor thing. Track 2 is straightforward purposeful BM with tremolo guitar melodies, riffs that actually groove and spooky keyboard tones that add a cold alien touch. There is jangly sparkling clean electric guitar that gives drama and the song is often quite beautiful, verging on psychedelic.

Track 3 begins strongly with more sparkling electric guitar jangle, a memorable bass riff and weirdly beautiful synth tone ambience. The music settles down into a repetitive pattern with periodic variations. The pace is brisk but on the whole the track is not that remarkable until after the 7th or 8th minute when a spiky trebly-sounding guitar riff starts up in the background. Here is a case of a song beginning strongly, then coasting along until towards the end when there is a late resurgence. I end up hoping the outro track will justify my high hopes for the second half of the album but "Shining Depth" turns out to be a little disappointing: it doesn't have a distinctive identity (riffs aren't that remarkable and partly because of that, the variety of melodies and the changes that occur make it difficult for listeners to latch onto something hooky enough to carry their interest) and it seems to go through the motions of filling out the available album space without much enthusiasm.

So my verdict is that though the first track here is strong and confident, as the album proceeds each succeeding song seems less than the one before it. Although the recording is less than 50 minutes long, it seems longer. There is beautiful unearthly keyboard music here which could have been brought to the fore on at least one track but it's relegated to background support which is a waste. The singing starts to get really tiresome after the first two tracks and I wish there could have been an instrumental track where the musicians do some experimenting with sound and ambience. Towards the end the music starts sounding a bit mechanical and lacks passion and feel.

Oddly enough, it was the title of the album, 'My Frozen Dream Slept too Eternally...' and the lyrical themes that attracted me to Anwech. The title reminded me of Judas Iscariot and as a big fan of Judas Iscariot, I decided to go on impulse and check Anwech out, to see what they were all about and if they held any resemblance to the aforementioned band. Unfortunately for me, Anwech don't really resemble Judas Iscariot at all. Their styles are different. Whilst Judas Iscariot's work is just typical of black metal, Anwech seem to lean more towards the depressive/suicidal theme. Of course, a band of this nature is bound to run in to a number of critics calling them the 'next Burzum', or simply 'clones' of Burzum because of the depressive tag. To me, Anwech are nothing like Burzum. The comparisons begin and end at being black metal. Anwech are their own band.


It's unusual that a bands lyrics attract me to them because black metal vocalists are usually indecipherable and I rarely read the lyrics anyway, but they did. I like nature and I like atmospheric music, so the lyrical themes appealed to me in that sense, but no more than that. I don't know what the lyrics are, nor do I really care. The vocals play a pivotal role only due to the fact that the rasping nature of the cries suits the music style. The emotion derived from the rasps is all that is really needed to assess the use of them on the soundscapes. In this case, the vocals are apt. They reflect the sad and sorrowful nature of the music. The slow passages especially. The vocals aren't overblown or anything out of the ordinary, but neither are Anwech. They simply exist for one purpose only and that is to reflect the themes without having to take note of what the lyrics actually say to it's audience.


One thing I couldn't escape when I came across Anwech was the second members pseudonym, Wankar. Come on, seriously, it's funny. I hope to god he doesn't speak English because that would be something out of the ordinary. I'll no doubt have a good laugh over that for some time to come. Besides that humorous point, Anwech's style doesn't make me laugh. It's desolate in it's approach and uncompromising on it's audience. Soundscapes are high on the list of priorities in terms of exploration, but that's about it. The repetitive style won't suit everyone, but it can be pulled off (Now i'm thinking of Wankar) to great avail. 'Shining Depth' is a fine example of the repetitive style done correctly. The keyboards, which are ever present in the background, offer light relief if you're searching for exploration in sound. The guitars are generally minimalistic, as is the bass, which has a dull sound to it. The percussion is much the same as the previous two instruments. It repeats itself a lot, but the songs have enough variation, over time, to maintain the interests of an audience. 'My Frozen Dream Slept too Eternally...' has enough packed into it to keep depressive/suicidal fans happy, but anyone else might be disappointed.