| Reviews for Aarni's Bathos |
| Has tons of potential. - 78% |
| Written by nightwrath
on January 10th, 2007
|
| I saw this disc described as very trippy and avantgarde stuff, and because that is my thing, I decided to give it a shot. I was a little disappointed at first, because I was expecting something in the vein of a slow UneXpect or Carnival in Coal. This feeling was even stronger when I saw the strange multilingual track names and lyrics, often written in a very abstract way. I must say that the content is very calm, even for a doom release. The disc has a dark tone to it at times, but has absolutely no aggresion it the sound. The sound can be described only as mystical, the feeling being made even stronger by Master Warjomaa's alchemist and esoteric inspirations. I have seen many attempts to describe the band's sound and it's closest to Progressive-Folk-Doom metal. (lacking the metal elements at times) I like the diversity of genres and huge amount of experimentation and genre-hopping, as I love the way they are incorporated in the sound. From the Gothic Doom of the track "The Thunder, Perfect Mindfuck", through the weird and ever-changing "Niut Net Meru", to the latin-styled second half of "Mental Fugue" (it also has a very cool electronic intro), all the hundreds of stylistic changes sound very natural are very fitting the disc's uniqueness. So two thumbs up for the songwriting. The sound and production is, however, what drops this album down. The guitar tone is pretty dull and the synths sound too simplistic. This makes the disc boring and repetitive at repeated listens, and it's the primary reason why this doesn't get a 90 or higher. All in all, I would recommend buying it if you like prog doom, because that's what this actually is, if you don't, download some songs and see what you think. I will however definately look forward to the sophomore album that is coming soon. BEST TRACKS: "The Thunder, Perfect Mindfuck", "Kesayo" |
| Very good - 94% |
| Written by cinedracusio
on September 7th, 2005
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| Some were disappointed by this, because it was said to be avantgarde and actually it is not quite avantgarde. But I think that it is still very much to be found in this record. The amount of experimentation found here is huge. Over the doomy textures that are found in the song we can get a lot of surprises, and it does not get boring too soon. Folk voicings created by diverse instruments, especially flutes, a distant and somehow dreamlike feeling maintained by the eerie atmosphere and untouchable obscurity. A small flaw is that the emotion is not present very much in Master Warjolma's singing, even if it's ranging from low singing and whispers to more violent grunting. The vocals are getting cold. The lyrics are beyond my imagination, there are lyrics in Latin, in English, in Finnish, I guess, and they are bizarre enough. I think that this is worth getting, like Umbra Nihil full length too. |
| Aarni - Bathos - 98% |
| Written by Ibex_Ichor
on August 24th, 2005
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| Hmm, this album is quite a strange one, as one can see just from the album art. Aarni is, without a doubt, full of diversity and is really, literally weird and bizarre. Not this is a bad thing because it surely is not. Aarni is able to blend many genres together and is able to have them flow together quite well. Musically, this is a mix between Doom Metal, Folk, Jazz, and basically anything and everything avant-garde. A song can begin with melodic clean guitars and flutes and can change in an instant to absolute crushing doom, and vice versa. Vocally, there's many different voices inside this album. There's a lot of this deep, chanting and spoken word. There's this also strange vocal that can be described as like a whispered scream. And of course, there is the grunting that is common in Doom Metal. Aarni is odd in the lyrics area as well as he uses many different languages. If you like strange music or Doom, Folk, and the like that you might like this. Even still, for anyone at all interested in this album, make sure you listen to it with an open mind because, again, this is very strange! I happened to like this album a lot and I'm sure it'll become a classic in my eyes. |