CoC : Atrium Noctis - Home : Review

Atrium Noctis - _Home_
(Naturmacht Productions, 2010)
by: Chaim Drishner (5 out of 10)

The main problem with these ultra melodic bands, of any given sub-genre of metal, is their ability to conclude one's fascination with their music in very few listening sessions; they are easily digestible, offer no musical or intellectual challenge for the listener and they don't make you passionately crave listening to their musical creations numerous times. They are what they are: decent time killers if you don't have anything else to do. Enjoy them once and totally forget about them. Artium Noctis' _Home_ is such an album: an easy listening experience in lightweight, straightforward, ultra melodic gothic-oriented black metal of sorts, which offers a linear, uninspired and pale version of Cradle of Filth for the poor, so to speak, sans the theatricals and the intricate song writing skills of Dani Filth et al. With a half-comical vocalist who offers his thin, almost ridiculous interpretation for a black metal vocalist (there is another, way cooler, deeper kind of vocals here which is much more appropriate) and a half-decent keyboardist who offers a lot of cheese all over the place instead of adding minimal eeriness to the musical plot like it should, the good parts on _Home_ are rare and far between, and even those are summed up by the dominating keyboards, playing these short and sweet neoclassical to medieval tunes, whereas the metal factors of the recording often fall into banalities and give the listener the feeling of been-there-done-that more than anything else. "Black metal" for beginners, anyone?

Contact: http://www.atrium-noctis.com/

(article published 29/11/2010)