Transient Chronicles

This is pretty good- not something the entire world needs to hear, but pretty quality nonetheless, and something really enjoyable if you're a big MDB fan. Excuse the workmanlike quality of the review, as the album itself is nothing special but a solid, well thought out bit of work.

First thing that will come to most people here is that this really is very similar to My Dying Bride. The singer's got a bit more range and has that manly, latino thing going- definitely preferable to an occaisonally very whiny Englishmen, at least. The guitars crack along and much of it is, upon close listen, a lot heavier than you may think- Fugitive and Us, Those Half Dead often sound so stately and bummed that you don't realize just how damn chunky some of the riffs are, cracking along with some rather rude, nasty melodies that bring to mind Turn Loose the Swans but with a bit more of a chromatic, Floridian approach to them. It's not a bad sound at all.

Poema aren't a bad band by any means- the songwriting throughout is pretty solid, the ballads aside- not awful, just rather dragging. I guess the way to sum up why I like Transcient Chronicles (and why I don't love it) is that is really is the socialised, the re-distributed version of a My Dying Bride album. Stainthrope and co. will generally do an album with some really awkward transitions, a few songs of total snooze-inducing filler... but also a few shit-ruining songs of fantastic riffs and wonderfully-executed mopeyness. Transcient Chronicles has a few half decent moments- Fugitive is a rather nice piece of doomy tension with some great riffs, Lambs is a short, nasty old school slab of death/doom- and there's plenty of decent moments throughout. But there's nothing here that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. There's a lot of respectable, well played solidness, there's a lot of "fairly good" riffs. But there's no genius in this album, no parts that really stand out, that really hit the spot. At the end of the day, that's what music is all about, really.

This isn't bad and I don't want to really dissuade people from giving it a chance if death/doom is your thing. But it's not the most amazing thing by a long shot. Give it a download and give it a chance- it won't actively offend you, and maybe you'll find something here relevant to you. I didn't, unfortunately.