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Epoch of the Fifth Sun - 65%
Alright; Tenochtitlan are by far one of the most creative bands I have came across in my quest to explore all the realms of metal. This band comes from somewhere in Russia, and from what I’ve herd this is some virtual band or something of the sort, with the members all being in other bands and sending parts to one another. Senmuth is credited in the booklet as being in charge of concept which I guess means he is the brains of the outfit. Brutal Harry is given writing credits for a lot of the tracks and is the only member that has not contributed to the vocals. Eresh along with Senmuth handle most of the vocal duties along with Lefthander who does the growling vocals. Together these four have put together and interesting debut album all based around the ancient Mayan, Incan, and Aztec civilizations.
The vocals are all sung in Russian or some tribal dialect which makes the album all the more difficult to fully understand. Vocalist duties are mostly handled by the dynamic duo of Eresh and Senmuth; however Lefthander takes the duties on the last track. The majority of the clean vocals on the album are done by Senmuth, sadly however he chants most of the way through which really doesn’t show a lot of power behind the vocals, his accent also takes a little time to get adjusted to. Eresh sadly remind of the vocalist from Rammstien, which totally bothers me (Rammstien has brainwashed my high school making me cry at night), his harsh vocals also seem really out of place with the somber atmosphere the album has got going for it. Lastly there is Lefthander who is only given the closing track of the album to unleash his full force, on a good note this man sounds like a beast, heavy rasping vocals jumping somewhere in between death and black metal add a much needed dose of evil to the mix.
Guitars are scarce on this disc; a random solo is thrown into one of the tracks and only the eighth track shows enough guitar work to dull the heavy amount of keyboards this album is lavished with. The bass shows up every once in a while, slow and playing generic doom riff’s. Senmuth obviously was more concerned with the keyboards, flutes and other such things to write any memorable parts in this department.
The drum parts are divided between your standard drum kit and some tribal drums sounding similar to bongos. The tribal drums are done by hand and add to overall atmosphere the band is trying to set, but they really don’t show up until the end, where we get a nice solo series. The standard drums sound programmed and seeing as no one is credited I assume that they are, which bothers me because a human drummer would obviously add so much more to this. However some of the programmed parts sound kind of cool until they are repeated at the same pace seconds later.
Keyboards, this album is loaded and reloaded with them, now normally I am a fan of them in metal but this is clearly overkill. They use these along with a flute to set a generally somber atmosphere, which sadly fails to capture the same enjoyment as albums like Agalloch’s The Mantle. I would have to guess that a good 75 percent of this album is filled with the same somber keyboard melodies, which were way overproduced, to the point where the guitars and the drums were almost drown out entirely. The band even places a nice techno intro one of the tracks, which doesn’t capture the same feeling Windir did when they put some techno parts on 1184, instead it makes me want to smash my crappy cd player with the disc in it.
The production of the album sounds very clean and sterile yet as I stated earlier the keyboards are way overproduced drowning out the guitars and drums for the majority of the time, they pop up every now and then but nothing amazing happens. If you bought the disc itself you get a nice booklet and some desktop wallpaper with photos of various ancient ruins as well as a few link to what I assume are information sites about whatever they discuss in the album, all of these are in Russian however so if you don’t understand the language they seem pointless.
Overall, this album leaves a lot to be desired, the over produced ambient parts may attract some and turn away some, the lack of guitar work and drumming will probably turn away some as well. If you’re a fan of Agalloch and While Heaven Wept’s “Of Empires Forlorn” album this might be your thing, however if you were like me and stumbled onto this band while looking for folk influenced doom metal I would look elsewhere.
