|
|
There's so much wrong and only two tracks that genuinely feel right.-
|
| My Black Light: Human Maze |
Gothic Metal
Pirames / Massacre Records (2011)
2010 / October 28th, 2011
- Energy Core - 1:12
- Being Human - 4:19
- Detriny - 4:14
- The Abstainer - 4:47
- Noise for Sale - 5:32
- Inner World - 5:14
- Deadline - 4:06
- A Lie for Eternity - 5:08
- Ideal - 0:49
- Guiding Light - 5:39
- Ti Sento - 3:59
- Unbreak My Heart - 3:49
|
| Links |
| Review Information |
Release length: 48:47
Review posted on November 10th, 2011
- |
|
| | Overall Score: 2.5/10 |
 
|
|
|
| Discography |
Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed. |
| Full-Length(s): |
Human Maze (2011)
|
|
| - |
| Review |
As soon as I looked at the artwork to Human Maze, the debut full-length release from the Italian Gothic Metal act My Black Light, I saw a mental image of a giant red sign that read: "Trouble Ahead." This album was originally issued back in 2010 through Pirames Records, or so I assume that word is at the very end since this is the only band to be released on that label over the course of at least a year now, and is probably just a made up label name the band tacked on their album to make them look more important then they really were at the time. Feeding into the cluttered and now overly stagnant female fronted Gothic Metal scene, for reasons beyond even my comprehension after only a brief time with this album, Massacre Records picked up this independent release for reissue in 2011, probably to cash in on the still active and strong scene due to current interest in female fronted (or involved) Metal acts, and/or to make some quick cash off the unsuspecting fans of the label. Either way, Human Maze is an album that not only became a struggle to listen to, but was absolutely infuriating to try to reason with why it sounds this way, as well as why it's being reissued in the first place. Clearly, this is a bad effort, but for what reasons?
First of all, this is an album that should have immediately been something else, and has the potential to sound great in a plethora of different ways. First of all, the audio quality here is quite grating, but that's more then likely due to it being an independent release initially. The guitars sound ok due to their slightly higher tone, but do have a bit of a heavier edge at times tyhanks to the strong bass presence that doesn't make much of an impact on it's own, but works along side the guitars to create a nice blunt sound to the recording. The keyboards here are an alright level but the sound used from it is generic, or just never packs enough of a punch and comes through just as weak notes that often have no real influence to the music at all. Even when coming through as a standard piano with a very gloomy, Sentenced-esque depressive sound it still sounds bland, uninspiring, and even cheap. The drumming is nice on here though. Granted the cymbols are a little too low and often come off drowned out in the mix, the thudding bass kicks add a nice touch to the album, and the booming, sometimes open sounding snares at a moderate level work with those kicks to add a little extra richness to the already slightly hollow sounding album. Obviously a better production would have helped the band out, as well as the guitars themselves coming through a little deeper since their lighter, sharper sound doesn't quite work for the style they are going for, and when the bass isn't there to help out they can sound somewhat offkey with the rest of the music.
But, one of the main drawbacks to this album, of course, is the vocals. This is a case of not judging the book by it's cover. Going back to the artwork, I thought this would actually be more of an Alternative Rock release, since it's the same generic band photo concept of all the men looking dull and the female member being vibrant, noticable and right in your face. Usually when this happens, the female vocalist or instrument player is actually rather good and enjoyable while being placed against horrible music. This time, it's not what I expected. While the production is bad and the distortion effect is way off to what the music really called for, the vocals here are horrible for the most part from her. It's hard to sit here and even claim they are generic at best, becauswe much of the tone played singing simply comes off whiny, nasal, and with the song "The Abstainer" among others, horribly off key to the point where you'll cringe and immediately go for the pause, stop, or skip forward button like I did as a knee jerk reaction. However, the more you listen to the album, you immediately become floored by her in the sense that she's performing so horribly, but then with tracks like "Inner World" and "A Lie for Eternity" she musters out a very impressive operatic voice that one might think of when it comes to bands like Therion or even Tarja-era Nightwish. This is really the only time the her performance on the album actually ends up becoming impressive with the rest just being generic or bad. Even the keyboards in these moments are far more dynamic and show what this instrument was clearly intended to do in the first place: Orchestral material. The additional gutturals vocals sound better then her regular performance. In fact, those vocals fit the music better in the first place and immediately make this album sound as if it was composed for male gutturals, but instead tacked on a female vocalist to go the Gothic Metal route for one reason or another.
And while Therion has been mentioned, you can tell that band, or ones similar to it, can come into play as an influence to the group with "Being Human." This is the first song off the atmospheric and enjoyable, yet somewhat cliche introductory track "Energy Core," and it makes a good impact until the vocals kick in. The song doesn't really offer much either, but the instruments work well together to create a deep and often strong sound that's catchy for what it is. The song does go into a bit of an eccentric kind of operatic sense, especially with the matching vocals that sound pheonomenal at that point with the additional gutturals that work nice to make those parts of the song richer and come off a bit influenced by that group or others, and it works out for the better. The chorus isn't bad either, being very catchy with a decent keyboard push as well, but the vocals fizzle out at the end, not holding the enjoyable slightly energetic sound they had at the start of the chorus, and instead don't quite fit it until the very end of the song when more energy is put into it. Granted that nasal approach still doesn't help, but that extra effort does make them a little more tolerable and suited to the Gothic Music instead of generic every day girl-who-thiunks-she-can-sing styled vocals. "Detriny" has it's moments as well, having a really impressive sound to much of it that feels rich and energetic with a fantastic operatic keyboard sound to varying parts of the song, but again the female vocals sound too generic for the rather rich and dynamic music, having basically no energy to match it outside the guttural male vocals that immediately works with the high octane music that kicks in and gets the listener blood pumping before fading into the generic keyboard Pop sound that started the song and really makes you just want to cry considering the amount of talent that is hown here, and even in "Inner World," that is clearly held back terribly. Especially at the end when the female vocals are performing the last line of the song, and you expect it give you one last energetic burst to make you feel like it's worth it, instead ending with that build going into the most generic ending possible: One whispered word against silence.
And that's the problem about this album. The band holds themselves back so badly and caves to generic or performances you can only sit back and call shit. "The Abstainer" is proof positive of thiks. The atmosphere of the song is fantastic, it feels gloomy and liquid-like but the nasal vocals can often be a bit out of place, and the keyboards sound like they're going to build up but instead go into weak sounds with chugging guitars that can't mask the louder volume nasal voice and drown out what atmospheric push the keyboards are giving the song before going into a fucking Electronica fueled bridge at the half way point that destroys the entire environment as the band completely goes into an attempt to recreate that eccentric sound but instead finds the music coming through weak and hollow and losing the richness and beautiful sound that it had. It's like the band purposely trying to kill anything good on this album by completely destroying the flow of songs that have such potential. If anything, it feels like a slap in the face to the listener that such potential ends up absolutely ruined by these horrible shifts in sound and performances. And bare in mind this is just the first few songs.
Admittedly, this album isn't an absolute waste. Even with the keyboards shifting into that Electronica sound at the end as sort of a final "screw you" to the listener, the song's richer sound and energetic performance all around with less nasal vocals that are better on key then with other songs, as well as layered nicely end up making the song sound pretty enjoyable. In fact, while it may not be much to say, "Noise for Sale" becomes one of the strongest tracks off the album, and thankfully not the last. While the flow here also comes off a little rocky, "Inner World" happens next with a strong Hard Rock rebellious attitude with that Gothic Metal sound and clean singing approach. The nasal generic vocals are gone again and the cleaner performance has more energy to it that gives it a more stand out sound against hard hitting music that has a bit of an emotional chorus with a fantastic performance all around going into a strong build that makes the music sound richer immediately after the second chorus that ushers in another eccentric moment that, admittedly, feels a bit out of place but does progress into a heavy sounding breakdown with additional guttural vocals. From here, the album does retain that more impressive approach, but at the same time working it in with the rather bad performances of before to create some enjoyable yet often generic material.
"A Lie for Eternity" is a bit of a surprising twist to the album as well. Musically, it's heavy and brooding, feeling depressive in a typical Rock or Metal ballad kind of way, but at the same time it ushers in clean male singing instead of the nasal female vocals the entire time, which do appear a bit again later on but is an alright performance but seem to take more from the impressive material then the purposely bad and whiny starting performances. However, the clean male singing vocals here sound decent, but offer no real impact to the music. Had they been handled with a traditional clean singing instead of like a grizzled seafaring man or even captain of old age singing it drunk in a tavern somewhere, then it would have been a fitting duet. There's also the higher pitched nasal singing that occurs at the end before the music goes into a more Jamaican cruise line sound for a moment that feels absolutely random and pointless to the tattered and clearly meant to be emotional song. There's also the interlude "Ideal" which kicks in after and honestly sounds beautiful and works with "Guiding Light" nicely, but sadly the latter of those two ends up just being boring and too cliche for the style, having vocals that feel too higher pitched against the somewhat heavier, yet still a bit inspiring music. There's also the cover of the Celine Dion song "Unbreak My Heart" which is an alright cover, but the band trying to add their own metal edge and have the keyboards randomly going off in the background aside the atmosphere suiting contributions on the chorus make the song feel like it lost it's emotional push. The chorus, however, is still pretty damn strong and finds everything coming together nicely. Of course the guitar solo that completely out of character to the song feels absolutely pointless and, even if you don't like the song, feels a bit blasphemous to it like the shouting and breakdown to "Holy Dover" by Killswitch Engage. The song doesn't feel as powerful, or emotional outside that chorus, infact making it sound cliche and generic, but it's at least still listenable to an extent.
Basically, Human Maze is not absolute garbage, but damn it comes close at times. My Black Light starts off the album taking everything good they write and literally destroying it before writing two fantastic songs and then figuring out how to merge the good and horrendous together to give a somewhat generic performance for the rest of the release. "Deadline" and on are decent tracks that sound a lot better then the first few songs, though you can't help but wish the group would bring in some of the more orchestral, energetic, or just overpowering material they put to use on "Noise for Sale" and "Inner World" back into the mix. There are some influences that can be found in here that do keep the generic material a little above that line, such as the aforementioned Therion and even some Nightwish and maybe even Deadlock, but sadly even those influences are kept to a very bare minimum. But, is this an album worth picking up? Not really thanks to there only being two really impressive songs and the rest rather generic or absolute garbage. Now is this an album that ever should have been picked up for reissue in the first place. The band has potential, that's pretty damn clear, but only when they can figure out how to harness it and leave behind their self-destructive habits will this group end up actually being one to take notice of.
| Submit to Social Networks |
Donater/Ethic Info |
|
Digital review copy of this release provided by:
Massacre Records. |
|
| |
