CoC : Throne of Ahaz - On Twilight Enthroned : Review

Throne of Ahaz - _On Twilight Enthroned_
(No Fashion, 1997)
by: Drew Snow (6 out of 10)

Don't buy the latest Throne of Ahaz album looking for surprises, because you won't find any. The material found within _On Twilight Enthroned_ has been done by other bands a thousand times before, and perhaps better. That said, _OTE_ isn't exactly a bad album, it's got its own high points (and its share of low points), and is overall fairly enjoyable, but nothing groundbreaking nor terribly interesting. This is aggressive black metal (but what black metal -isn't- aggressive, for that matter...), but not overtly melodic like most other bands on No Fashion. One of the main things that hurt this album is probably the production. High on the bass drum (just try and pick out the snare during the fast parts), and low on guitar, the production does nothing for this release. Still on the production theme, the vocals have a slight echo/reverb effect added to them, and have some kind of strange sound to them, like they were overly engineered/produced (of course this may or may not be the case). The melodies set forth by Throne of Ahaz are all pretty basic, nothing complex or mind-boggling, but even with the knowledge in mind that they weren't supposed to be complex, they aren't much to listen to. In addition, maybe as a by-product of their simplistic approach, ToA have somewhat of an "old school" feel at times; nothing as obvious as, say, Deathwitch, but evident nonetheless. I hate to end this by calling _On Twilight Enthroned_ generic, but it's difficult to avoid.

(article published 4/2/1997)