The Malediction of Manifestation

Qabr plays the fairly conventional funeral doom. Nothing unusual, nothing special, but if done right, it has the potential to be good anyway. Well, this really isn't, and there are several factors that hinder the overall enjoyment and remove 40 points from the rating.

Opener "She Never Left" starts with a slow, mournful keyboard riff, played with an organ sound. So far, so good. Programmed drums enter later, but this isn't bad either. Whoever programmed these seems to have a fair knowledge of actual drumming, and it shows.

The guitar is very typical, never really deviating from the expected, the distorted pwer chords. Shortly after, the vocals enter. I'm not sure what the vocalist was going for here, but if anything, they detract from the average music, bringing it way below enjoyability. He has a very raspy scream, but it is usually too high in the mix and too loud. Needs to be improved before being so audible as this. Maybe a little reverb or something would've helped.

"The Gallows Funeral" is a much better track. The sadness is better portrayed, the guitar feels heavier, and the organ is used more to complement it, rather than to take the lead. The vocalist here tends to favor more of a traditional growl, which he's MUCH better at. The first track would probably have been better if he'd have just stuck with what he is obviously more skilled at. Another highlight of this track is, as mentioned, better use of keyboards. Around 5:20, the guitar exits and the organ plays a very haunting, sinister sounding riff.

Overall, "The Malediction Of Manifestation" is surprisingly good for what it is- the first demo from an unsigned, unknown funeral doom band. With improved vocals, a bit more of a guitar presence, and louder drums, this band could turn into something great.

A Funeral Doom band coming from the warm and sunny United Arab Emirates - Dubai to be more precise - is not something that you come across everyday, but it exists: Tragedian, now known as Qabr, is composed of 3 Arabs. The 2-track demo The Malediction Of Manifestation is their only release to date.

However, there is not much exotic about this demo: The music is Funeral Doom / Death with a few blast beats outbursts à la diSEMBOWELMENT, some Ambient parts and vocals like on Bethlehem's Dictius Te Necare. There is not much else to be said, apart that the CD is of quite bad quality: it sounds as if 128 kbit/s mp3 songs had been burnt on CD... True or not, the fact is that the frequencies above 15 kHz are missing (I tested this; for information, a real audio CD plays is capable of frequencies of over 20 kHz), and this is rather unpleasant when listening to the tracks with full attention.

The Malediction Of Manifestation is nothing really new, but for a first release it is decent. I just hope that next time we will be able to hear a CD with REAL CD quality.

Originally written for http://www.adnihilum.co.nr