An Illusion to the Temporary Real

The early-2000s gothic metal was going through a boom of female fronting bands. Sure there have been good bands beyond Theatre of Tragedy and The Gathering that were able to get away with being copycats or just taking these two bands and make something unique and different. Bands like The Sins of Thy Beloved, Estatic Fear, Artrosis, and later on Lacuna Coil and Draconian would go on to do stuff that was unique during the time. However, there have been a lot more blatant rip offs then, and would later result in a growing saturation of these bands by the end of the decade. Among the bands that I happened to listen to recently was Australian band Chalice.

Chalice was one of those bands where I initially did not enjoy at first listen. Recently I've been listening to their sophomore album "An Illusion to the Temporary Real" to see what I was missing whenever I listen to this album. Despite my attempts at listening to this album I thought of this album as nothing, but bland. It was a real shame too, it had me pumped from the beginning, then after the first two tracks I kept thinking it was never going to end.

Let's start with what was positive about "An Illusion to the Temporary Real." First off, I do enjoy its inclusion of the flute instrument. I usually never hear a flute in a gothic metal album before, but it does do something that most of Chalice's contemporaries never did. It sounds soothing, and does come off as folk-like. I'm also going to get this out of the way and say that the lyrics on this album is really good. Sure, it doesn't bring anything new for the times, but they are still well written. The first two Songs on the album are probably the only good Songs on the album. The title track does have good build up and some good piano parts in there. "The Jester's Banquet" despite having some bland non-soprano vocals has some good soothing instrumentation, but it's the flute parts that save the Song. The keys in the Songs are decent, and has soothing elements that were supposed to be made welcoming for the entire album.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the album doesn't justify the rest of the album.

The majority of "An Illusion to the Temporary Real" music was really just boring. The vocals did it's best whenever the singer sings high notes, but the rest just felt tired and generic. Generic drumming was also present on this album, where it sounds like clicks along with unnecessary metal tempo beats heard in a Song like "The Stigma of an Age." Most of the album doesn't really do anything too exciting either. For example, the transition from "Vista" to "Catalepsy In Staccato Rain" felt awkward concerning the latter Song just drags on much like the next track "To Death Betrothed." On top of that, despite having the flute, the atmosphere felt thin. There's not even a keyboard being overused for a depressing factor, or a wall of sound. The same goes for the electric guitars which also sounds too generic, despite having some licks of leads in some of the Songs. I barely heard bass guitar due to the production of the album. The bass is almost inaudible which also thins out the music's atmosphere and heaviness. Each Song didn't do anything new to have an identity and therefore it felt like eternity to listen to.

To make things short, "An Illusion to the Temporary Real" is bad. Even though it had a few things that don't make this album a total dumpster fire my experience with this album has been mainly negative. This album felt like a blatant rip off of not just The Gathering, but more of a blatant rip off of Estatic Fear with flute. It all felt boring, and generic with a production and structure that makes the atmosphere not atmospheric, but thin. Concerning Chalice's other albums I never really had intention to listen to their other albums, this album in particular made me not want to listen to them again. We'll see how that plays out when I have nothing left to review in the realm of gothic metal.