Taranis - Dionysian Polemic
Lineup
Kevin Finnley - Everything
Background
Honestly, I don't know what to put here. I have absolutely no information on the band or
Kevin. There's no website, no myspace, no soundclick, no anything. The only information I have available is that
Taranis is an
American Black Metal band hailing from Spokane, Washington with two demos and two full lengths under their belt. I shall be reviewing the first full length,
Dionysian Polemic.
The Sound
If you read the bolded words 'American Black Metal' above and immediately thought, "Oh great, another
Xasthur clone", think again, because Taranis is miles away from the typical
USBM sound. Instead, what we have here is an album that treads the line between
Black Metal and
Pagan Metal. On some songs, like
Samsara and
Who Are We, Taranis pumps out mid paced Black Metal with the occasional synth work coming into play, yet one some songs, like
Warspeak (the gem of the album) and
Wonderous Forest, Taranis plays a dark Pagan Metal with flashy synth melodies. Many times throughout the album,
Ambient interludes will come in during the middle of a song, and while they are usually always good, a few times the Ambient parts do not make much sense in the song they are contained within. A song will be moving along just fine, and then all of a sudden a Piano will come in playing a melody that just really doesn't fit with the song, and then stop and go right back into the song. I'm a huge fan of Keyboards and Ambient parts, but there are more than a few occasions on Dionysian Polemic where they just do not fit with the song, and only serve to break up the flow of the track. The guitar tone on this album is a bit of a mixed bag. It is heavily reverbed, and thus is thick and chunky when playing on the top strings, but when Kevin goes down to the bottom three for a tremolo picked riff, it just sounds atrocious. The higher pitched tone will literally give you headaches. It's squeaky, out of tune, and just doesn't sound right. While playing heavier riffs, though, the thick guitar sound sounds great. As far as what the guitar is playing, it never strays very far from standard Black Metal riffs and tremolo picking. Luckily, the high pitched tremolo riffing only appears on the tracks Who Are We (which is rendered unlistenable due to the constant tremolo picking) and Wonderous Forest (which makes up for it later in the song with some good ol fashioned Pagan Metal playing). Keys are used a fair amount on the record, and are only used to create ambience behind the track, as the only song where a melody is actually played is Warspeak, and what a melody it is. If the rest of the album could have followed in the same vein as Warspeak, this would have been one hell of a release. Acoustic Guitars make an appearance at the end of this track, and it is possibly the greatest moment of the album. Terrific ambience. There are also two Keyboard only tracks,
Homo Galactacus and
Metempsychosis, and both are very good tracks. Metempsychosis is a bit long for an outro, but if you're a fan of Ambient you'll have no trouble sitting through it's entirety.
The Atmosphere
It's a bit odd, as most of the songs feature lyrics of nature, Paganism, and even some slight NS ideals, yet the atmosphere of this album reeks of Science Fiction. The song Homo Galactacus, of course, is meant to sound this way, but most of the other songs carry the same atmosphere. Very spacey sounding synths dominate Warspeak that draw to mind mid 1900's Sci Fi. You know, Star Rangers type stuff. It sounds a bit odd, but it works well coupled with the Black Metal that Taranis plays.
Pros
Spacy synth atmosphere - I know it sounds odd, but the spacey synth sound works so well here, and it really makes listening through this cd much more entertaining, as it doesn't instantly remind you of other bands. You know, when you're listening to a band, and all that you can think about is a band that does it better.
Use of ambience - Taranis puts to use a very good ambience, and even crafts three full Ambient tracks, that are actually some of the best on the album.
Cons
High pitched guitar playing tone - The Guitar tone when the Guitar starts playing high is just atrocious. Who Are We is not even listenable due to the tone.
Overuse of ambience - While Taranis does employ a very good usage of ambience, at times it is just employed when it shouldn't be. If you can fit a nice Ambient break into a song, that's great, but when you force one into a song, it can almost ruin it.
Closing Comments
While it may seem like this album deserves a 2 from all that I've said about it, I do actually quite like this album. It is solid Black Metal with some terrific spacey synth playing sparingly. It's not something I could see myself listening to over and over for years, but definately something I'll listen to here and there, if not for anything but the awesome Synths and Acoustic Guitars.
Recommended Tracks (in order)
Warspeak
Homo Galactacus
Wrathless (good mid paced Black Metal, since I didn't describe it in the review)
