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Rating: Ah... the good times of "Wildhoney".
How I miss those songs that even today evoke so many dark and sulfurous sensations and emotions, those atmospheres so gloomy yet romantic and captivating. That decadent, depressive, and so damn successful album will never return. And I scream: unfortunately.
Today's Tiamat wants to return to those macabre and cemetery sounds, filled with strong doom and gothic elements combined with elaborate and thoughtful metal, but they can no longer succeed.
Many years have passed since that masterpiece and other great albums that have made Tiamat a reference point for this musical genre, like the successful "Clouds", but the decline was in the air already with the last unsuccessful albums. And the trajectory keeps going lower and lower.
"Amenethes", their new work, represents a gothic mess that is not successful at all, it represents a machine that has now jammed, it is the manifesto of a band that might have lost much of its class and visionary musical vision.
The sensation of boredom and repetitiveness dominates this album, as in "Equinox of the gods" or "Until the Hellhounds Sleep Again", the former certainly superior where we find small flashes of light, while the latter gives us the worst of Tiamat, revisiting in "Katarraktis Apo Aima", a truly, truly terrible track with sounds that do not reflect the group's true style.
To discard the trivial ballad that is "Misantropolis" or the first single "Lucienne", some sort of "hunting" track, designed to be a single and thus snag a few more fans.
Perhaps only "Via Dolorosa" can be saved, the only glimpse of the true Tiamat, those who knew how to move by creating sonic hallucinations so varied and real.
It might be the fascinating cover that perhaps kept this album still on my shelf... for the rest, much to discard and very little to save...
As always, when talking about bands of this level, we immediately miss the good old days, in this case, that seminal "Wildhoney" or even "A Deeper Kind Of Slumber", but getting to regret even "Prey" which I considered the lowest point of their discography...
Tracklist and Lyrics
02 Equinox of the Gods (04:34)
Listen to the angel sing
I can hear her crying
I can see her burning wing
In a burning church of shame
A bloody Mary in flames
Spoken infernal names
Rise from the ashes and do it again
Yeah, we can make it happen
My Nemesis, my friend
Why don't you stop to pretend
It's the beginning not the bitter end, no
Through the Genesis flood
We were baptized in blood
A military coup of the new God's
Rise from the ashes and do it again
Yeah, we can make it happen
This is the Equinox of the Gods
This is the Equinox of the Gods
Set the altar on fire
See the embers go higher
See the burning oils glowing
Sacrificial blood's flowing
We never bow unto thee
We went to Gethsemane
To kill your self-pitying Nazarene
Now all the cherubs are deceased
Upon their corpses we feast
The only good priest is a dead priest!
Rise from the ashes and do it again
Yeah, we can make it happen
We can make it happen
This is the Equinox of the Gods
This is the Equinox of the Gods
(Crucify her upsidedown
Impale her with rusty nails
Dress her up in a blood red gown
And gory, beautifully painted veil
Let her bleed to death before our eyes
Oh ooh
May she be punished and sacrificed
Oh ooh, oh yeah!)
The dirty nuns are in chains
No monasteries remain
The time has come for our Master to reign
Again
Thy kingdom is gone
Satan's work is done
And A-Bomb over Babylon
Rise from the ashes and do it again
Yeah, we can make it happen
This is the Equinox of the Gods
This is the Equinox of the Gods
This is the Equinox of the Gods
This is the Equinox of the Gods
Set the altar on fire
See the embers go higher
See the burning oils glowing
Sacrificial blood's flowing
Listen to the angel sing
I can hear her crying
I can see her burning wing
I can hear her dying
07 Katarraktis apo aima (02:42)
One, two, three, four...
Sons and daughters
Troubled waters
A stench of burned gasoline
Silicon and Codeine
Flooded highlands in misty haza
Mudslides and suicides
Earthquakes and gamma rays
Devilish acts of God above
Carried to heaven by a dirty white dove
And in the corner there's a broken man
His fingers are on the trigger now
And as the smell of dying embers
And rusty strings on his bow
A sound explodes and fills the room
And echoes beyond these walls of doom
Until it vanishes up in the air
With nothing more to come
Yeah, we must aim for the stars and we are gonna get up high
We must build another tower and make it though the fires
We must sail the seven seas now the water abound
We shall cease the deceased until the angels come around
With noting more to come...
13 Circles (03:48)
And now that we're dead
We've learned how to live
Our failures taught us how to forgive
And now that we've rise from the ashes of me and you
All our dreams shall come true
Floating in circles
Stars shall light our way
To meadows and fields, green as the grass
Where we lay down
Forever...
And now that we're clean
Our souls can be free
Our love is the only drug we need
And now that we're one
We don't need any God
Divinity flows in our blood
Floating in circles
Stars shall light our way
To meadows and fields, green as the grass
Where we lay down
Forever...
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Other reviews
By ElectricOne
This new album, long-awaited and desired, is truly a disconcerting disappointment.
The impression from the first listen is that of witnessing the creation of a compendium of ideas randomly put together and recorded.
By darkHaem
If I had to define the new work of Tiamat with a single adjective, I would simply say that it is an extremely romantic work.
Johan Edlund’s new voice ... makes it clear that the years ... have not led to a gradual degradation but to a new and stratospheric originality.
