Baneful Apparitions of the Thicket

This is the sort of release that in any objective appraisal is completely terrible but has just enough bizarre charm to it to make it worthwhile. Gower is an essentially incompetent band who have no idea what they're doing, but by force of pure will or sheer luck they managed to stumble onto a handful of good songs with 'Baneful Apparition Of The Thicket'. It's clumsy, awkward, and downright retarded in places, but overall it's a net win and I nearly resent it for that.

Nothing is done right on this EP. The production is inconsistent and in all cases completely awful, with thin, utterly powerless guitars, distant and cheap-sounding drums, Casio synths galore, and overly effect-drenched vocals. The instrumental performances are all hesitant and poorly timed and the band regularly has no fucking idea what they're doing on even the simplest parts. The music itself is Summoning worship that manages to be original just by virtue of how bad these guys are at actually replicating Summoning's music. At first glance, this CD has absolutely nothing to recommend for it. Or at second or third glance.

But if you look past all the glaring flaws that this release has (and they are many, and they are certainly bright), you actually find something surprising: as clumsily designed as the music is, the songs are actually quality. Gower is at its heart a Summoning clone, but they've added a bit more full-fledged black metal to the mix and made the music more steadily plodding and brooding rather than epic in nature. Significant influence from 'Filosofem'-era Burzum can be found in the layers of slowly swaying keys, and the creaking, marching riffs do convey an interesting atmosphere. As effect-soaked as the vocals seem to be, they're delivered well in a pseudo-Pagan Hammer vein, distorted, reverb-drenched, and distant in the background.

It's very atmospheric music, though I'd be hard-pressed to describe exactly what that atmosphere is; maybe it's Summoning's Tolkien themes but instead of climactic battles Gower is just describing the day-to-day life of Minas Tirith. The music is so relaxed and ambient it's practically comatose and there's really not a hint of aggression to be found anywhere despite angry-sounding titles about aryans and battle. It certainly stumbles into a lot of this atmosphere, but fortunately the band is even able to make use of some of the terrible elements that plague this release; it wouldn't convey nearly the same emotional and philosophical spectrum without the terrible production and oversimplified playing.

This isn't something I recommend to anyone who's not into completely underground music; if your typical listening habits incorporate Wintersun you're going to think this is terrible crap, and even if you do like extremely underground music you'll likely think this is terrible crap, and on some level I think it's terrible crap. It is unique and has a certain undefinable mysticism about it though, so if you think you're capable of getting past the obvious aesthetic deficiencies, you should give it a try and see how you feel.