Tiamat
Amanethes

THE REVIEW

Paraphrasing the text of the opener "The Temple Of The Crescent Moon", five years have passed since the previous work of the Swedish band Tiamat and they have been years of "thunder, lightning and rain", in which they took a nice break, released a celebratory DVD ("Church of Tiamat") complete with live performance and a best-of ("Commandments"), thus closing the long recording chapter with the German Century Media, which first spotted their talent, guiding the band away from their primal death shores to the modern gothic rock/metal of "Prey", finally settling in the arms of the powerful Nuclear Blast.

Well, was it worth waiting so long for this new release? According to the German label, it certainly was, not to mention Johan Edlund’s perspective.

After an attentive and repeated listening of "Amanethes", the question that naturally arises is: is this it? Is this really the maximum effort by our Swedes to delight their fans after all this time? Did the mountain really give birth to this mouse?

Now I don’t wish to seem pitiless, but this new album, long-awaited and desired, is truly a disconcerting disappointment.

That the band has never been loyal to a single line/musical trend is well-established, as is their great ability to transform ethereal (quite psychedelic, indeed) and dreamy songs into deep nightmares of solid gothic metal. But this is where the problems of "Amanethes" arise: all the proposed tracks seem to lack a common denominator and certainly, the track list composition doesn’t help in finding a logical thread that unites all the musical components of the varied and colorful world residing in the mind of the main composer, that is, Edlund himself.

The impression from the first listen is that of witnessing the creation of a compendium of ideas randomly put together and recorded (superbly, as usual from Tiamat) as a sort of test, so as not to leave them forgotten in some remote corner of memory.

And to think, the start suggested a truly sumptuous album, almost a return to the past (vaguely with a black taste as in "The Astral Sleep") thanks to decidedly sharp guitars, double kicks, sporadic blast beats interspersed with wonderful gothic melodies and modern dark vibes: "The Temple Of The Crescent Moon" and "Equinox Of The Gods" definitely justify the purchase of the record in question, but one must admit that from the third track onward, for a total of 12 more songs, excluding only "Lucienne" (quite catchy in the chorus and pleasant overall), "Raining Dead Angel" (barely sufficient) and the final "Amanes" (quite dark and oppressive, yet well-crafted thanks to its wise alternation between acoustic intimacy and spectral doom power), all the rest presents itself as a kaleidoscope of pretentious pseudo rock/country banalities, pseudo Pink Floyd, pseudo folk, pseudo songwriter tunes.

The peak of negativity is reached with the dismal rock ballad "Will They Come" (embarrassingly vocal interpretation), the Portishead oriented "Summertime Is Gone" (truly boring) and the country/folk "Maliae" (horribly insipid and predictable).

The remaining tracks not mentioned do not possess significant noteworthy elements, they pass unnoticed as fillers, dulling the unwary listener, but at least they do not leave that bitter taste of disappointment and discontent that unfortunately often surfaces during the listening session of this truly weak "Amanethes".

The worst chapter in Tiamat's history: the beginning of the End?