So what do I know about Australian one-man black metal project Artanor? Not a lot to be honest. Menelyagor is the entity behind it, the multi-instrumentalist. They started way back in 2007 but their only previous release was a split with fellow Aussies Bereavement, apparently. So this I guess has had a long gestation period to say the least.
Anyway, press the play…
It opens with slow, dungeon synth style keys, slow and carefully picked before being demolished by the sudden driving riff. It’s a fairly raw sound with neat snarling vocals and it is one of those sounds that seems to wind up the tension in my head, in a good way. There’s a somewhat chilly melody here too but despite my ADD I don’t begin to wonder overly about snow in Australia. A slower passage breaks thing up, and perhaps it is a bit sudden and the drums a little distracting in the mix but it speeds up again smoothly.
I think it’s fair to call the production here functional. It’s good enough, not lo-fi but just on the one song I’m wondering a little about that drum mix in the slow part.
But still a good opener.
‘From The Roaring Fire’ comes next. A drum battery pretty much announces it and a fair nod to the Norwegian sound; a touch of Immortal here in the vocals and there in the riff. It finds a neat melody to raise despite me now realising that yes the mix might be a little off. Still it doesn’t ruin anything and it’s a decent song even though I kinda get lost in the slower section I’m afraid.
It gets a little more difficult for me around ‘A Reminder Of Past Glory’. It’s an album of songs between six and nine and a half minutes long and though every song has a fine melody in the atmospheric riff and the vocals are full of character, I am never entirely transported. Too often the length and the hook struggle against each other and I drift a little too much. It sounds harsh but it’s not that there is anything boring at all, just that there are sections that the spark is stretched thin over for me or some part of the arrangement doesn’t quite gel. ‘Sons Of The Rock’ for example has some clean and almost chanted or intoned vocals which should be excellent but the riff for me doesn’t bring out any esoteric or primal feelings and they feel a little wasted. On the other hand ‘First Born Minion’ keeps things relatively simple and is a fine song and easily justifies it’s six minutes with a great guitar melody and a genuine feel of the forlorn and the being in the presence of something greater. This one is very impressive.
The album finished with the epic ‘Despondent Echoes Of Misery’ where the tendrils of doom present here and there on the album and raised higher. The slow but quite graceful beginning and melancholic melody work really well. It shifts and sidles into different tempos and whilst as little stretched is a nice ending and something Artanor are clearly comfortable with.
So a bit mixed for me. When it’s good it is rather good, when it stretches things it tends to fade and slide away from me I’m afraid. But worth a listen for black metal fans, and I dare say a lesson in perseverance for us all.
(6/10 Gizmo)
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