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September 7, 2008 |
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01. Coalescent Of The Inhumane Awareness
02. Sonorous Howl From Beyond The Stars
03. Upon The War-Torn Shape Of Cold Earth
04. In The Arcane Clasp Of Unwritten Hours
05. Entreaties To The Primaeval Chaos
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With "Tides of Awakening", TYRANNY presents their listeners with an enigma. What's more important in measuring music's artistic success; asking whether or not it makes you feel, or by judging whether or not you like how it makes you feel? This glacially paced Funeral Doom album definitely emits palpable sensation, leaving the listener chilled, disturbed, and thoroughly uncomfortable. The music is painfully slow. Single colossal notes pulse and linger in the air, the sounds both tingling and thunderous. Trudging, dense riffs plod forth under celestial, soothing female opera vocals. It's not just atmospheric. TYRANNY is atmosphere; the vibrations the band emits penetrate the air, leaving you shivering.
If whether or not the music evokes feeling in the listener is the question, then TYRANNY most definitely succeeds. The pace of the album, true to Funeral Doom form, is that of the slow horrible lurch towards death. Both vocals and guitar portend apocalypse. Often, high, female vocals will enter and emit a celestial, soothing tickle to the ears, lingering, swelling and blending into the wavering hum of the background. When the sepulchral vocals enter, the rumbles of the human voice blend organically into the wall of harsh, overwhelming Doom Metal. The guitar solos poignantly cascade up and down the fretboard in the background, adding an element of eerie lamentation to the overwhelming, tectonic drone. The riffs are massive, moving along at a pace so slow it's downright glacial, yet the sound isn't all that sludgy; though the thickness of the music is palpable, each voice blending to the harmony is clear and distinct, a testament to the album fine production quality.
TYRANNY is a band that makes you feel, that much is certain. Yet the questions of whether you will like what it makes you feel, and whether that even matters, remain. For example, the first track, "Coalescent Of The Inhumane Awareness", begins on a chilling, suspenseful note, distinctly resembling the music you'd hear in the background of the final slasher scene of a horror movie, right before the killer strikes. Yet the anxiety does not let up, and when the inhuman vocals croak their way in, the discomfort created by the music is all the more unbearably tense. The second track, "Sonorous Howl From Beyond The Stars", is similarly abuzz with apprehension; though deep, thick, slow guitars plod apace with light, ethereal keyboards, the clash between the gut-wrenching low notes and the uplifting high notes is eerie enough to trouble any listener.
The final track is perhaps the most disquieting song of all, though the word "song" is debatable. This is the closest that TYRANNY comes to pure Noise on "Tides Of Awakening", and the furthest they stray from more traditional Doom Metal. The overwhelming power of the music, as well as the bleakness and desolation it invokes, could classify this song as Doom Metal, but all seven minutes of "Entreaties To The Primaeval Chaos", are mind-numbing Harsh Noise, like to the sound of searing, sandy winds howling across some desert plains. Literally, listening to it may hurt your ears.
TYRANNY's use of chilling Noise and Drone Metal elements in their brand of Funeral Doom renders this effort a solid attempt to make the listener feel the art. It is up to you to decide whether you dig music that makes you feel like you're being dragged through a swamp full of rusty nails, but whether you like it or not, you will feel Tyranny's torturously tangible aural annihilation.
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