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Amaran > A World Depraved > Reviews
Amaran - A World Depraved

Solid Debut (Not As Bad As I First Thought) - 87%

FOrbIDen, August 12th, 2011

"Amaran was a Swedish band that played an interesting mix of melodic death metal, gothic metal, and power metal on their debut before changing into a power thrash metal band later on. The heavy and agressive riffs and Johanna's (vocalist) voice sound fantastic together. And of coarse a debut is usually never that great, which their debut that was released in 2002 with the title "A World Depraved", really wasn't. I started listening to "Amaran" several years after they broke up, and when I heard music from this album I thought it was pretty bad.

First off, the vocals in their debut sounded heavier, duller, and forced. The guitars sounded blurred and less crisp and the production wasn't that great. At first, I thought the guitars didn't have any leads (or at least close to none) and the sound was very choppy. But as time passed I came to realise several things. The vocals, while being very forced, were still pretty tasteful, but sometimes curved a little flat. The vocals would've also sounded better if there weren't any background vocals, the two notes would sometimes not blend right. The guitars are blurred and the production isn't that great, but the sound is still organized and the riffs are still catchy and agressive. The last thing is that there are actually many leads, but they were very subtle, and created a very good background for the vocals.

So, this album might not do it for some people, but if you listen to it and find out for yourself it might be worth the investment. It's a solid album and I plan to see this album in my collection in the near future.

Highlights: Lullaby

Melodeath With Clean Vocals? Really? - 33%

Charlo, October 11th, 2009

Amaran is a Swedish power metal band. Correction - Amaran is a band making a sad attempt at playing power metal. Really, their music is more of a blend of three genres: melodic death, gothic, and power. The end result is listenable - barely.

The most interesting aspect of this band is the female vocalist. Most melodically-oriented bands feature operatic vocals if they decide to go with a female vocalist. Not Amaran; the vocals here are definitely just straightforward gothic metal singing. Usually this would put me off, but in this case, it works; operatic vocals would not fit with this band's aggressive, keyboard-less sound.

This band writes pretty good riffs; better than the majority of power metal, anyway. The guitars are nicely heavy and complex. The only problem: there are no friggin' leads! The vocals carry the melody through the entire album! There are a few exceptions (on songs like Imperfect and Karma in Flesh), but that's missing the point. Really, this album is not much fun to listen to; the vocal melodies are not catchy and there is nothing else to grab on to. Sure, some of the riffs are somewhat catchy and even melodious, but too often the guitars start chugging mindlessly and all you can think about is turning this crap off.

I don't really like the bass tone on this album, but just the fact that I can hear the bass is a good thing, I suppose. The bass is too clangy, not at all like the smooth bass tone that most melodic bands use, but I can live with it since the bass has some relatively exciting parts. The drums are there, which is about all I can say. On occasion the drummer will play a moderately interesting beat, but he never goes into all-out speed mode. Most power metal bands recognize the fact that they need to include at least one or two high-speed anthems, but this band never strays past mid-paced. Another affirmation that this band is not really power metal at all.

Amaran is trying hard to be a popular, mainstream melodic metal band. The only problem is that they've forgotten the melodies. They're split up now, so thankfully we don't have to endure any further attempts from this band aside from their sophomore effort (which I don't ever plan on checking out). The only people I can imagine enjoying this would be fans of mainstream gothic metal ala Lacuna Coil and Lullacry, or fans of Gothenburg-metal who for some reason want female vocals. Everybody else, stay away.

Great debut from an interesting band!! - 85%

WitheringToSerenity, June 29th, 2004

Amaran is a band that combines excellent female fronted vocals and aggressive music that happens to be quite technical(for genre standards). Not the most original of bands but a very interesting idea as a hybrid of two excellent types of music. The vocals are reminiscent of Anneke from The Gathering or possibly Cristina from Lacuna Coil but the music makes this band so different. The wild card aspect of this band is that the guitarwork on this album literally kicks the crap out of the bands mentioned before in intensity and actual complexity. Amaran offer a few tricks but the majority of the album consists of beautiful female vocals and standard heavy instruments which makes it fairly predictable. One of the very few of these types of bands that could be considered to have metal musicians. Very listenable, catchy and quite heavy at the same time. If you enjoy The Gathering, Lacuna Coil, Dreams of Sanity, etc etc I would recommend this band.

Favorites : Faith Healer, Received A Kiss, Void, Karma In Flesh