| Akercocke 'The Goat Of Mendes' Peaceville, 2001 Lord Pale: Akercocke return with their second album 'The Goat Of Mendes' demonstrating a new archetype of British satanic blackened deathmetal. Akercocke sound most reminiscent of early Cradle Of Filth with blackened riffs combining with deathy chugging riffs and the blending of blackmetal rasps and deathy growls. Where Akercocke differ from the stereotype is their ability to form interesting songs of that style without the over saturation of keyboards displayed by Cradle Of Filth. They are still present, but are infrequent and used more as a background melody rather than a driving factor in the structure of the songs. Unfortunately like Cradle Of Filth, Akercocke seem quite happy to flaunt semi naked women on their artwork which has become a selling point in the scene of late as opposed to the artistic use which suited the themes on earlier Cradle releases. Akercocke has a brutal and at times paganistic sound to their music and the naked females on their artwork is just selling themselves short extremity after all should focus on the music not what sick images a band can put on their T-shirts. Some clean vocals appear in some of the tracks which add a nice touch to their breed of music, compensating for a lack of feminine vocals that seem to be obsessively abundant these days. Overall the music is a touch simplistic although entertaining enough and at least one excellent song appears 'A Skin For Dancing In', but I feel that there are still a few too many fillers on the album which is disappointing for an over-hyped bands second release. A worthy effort, just frustrating that the band seem to be trying to follow the trends when they don't need to. Favourite Tracks - A Skin For Dancing In, Horns Of Baphomet, Breaking Silence Mark - 7.5/10 Akercocke �Choronzon� Earache , 2003 Lord Pale: Britian�s extreme metal hopefuls Akercocke return with a new album of Satanic ruffage. Choronzon is a tad more erratic than it�s predecessor sounding ( for the majority ) like a sloppy mish mash of grind, Nile style death, Opeth/Nevermore style clean vocal sections, and assorted synth noises. Although I applaud the bands taste in models for the front cover art, the naked woman/spoken intro to �Praise The Name Of Satan�, and some of their lyrics shows a distinct lack of maturity compared to what their music seems to be aiming for. After listening to the album through for the forth time I still haven�t found a track that appeals to me overly much, and indeed although full of excellent ideas and musical passages the tracks themselves lack individuality when the album is played through as a whole. On many occasions, these sparks of brilliance are drowned out by the overly choppy song writing and unnecessary length of the songs. Overall this is an album that should appeal to some of the bands previous followers, but could have been much better with a little more maturity and more concise songwriting. Favourite Tracks - Prince Of The North , Goddess Flesh , Leviathan Mark - 6.5/10 |
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