No thanks. I had a feeling this wasn't going to be so hot because the demo is presented very unprofessionally in my opinion. The CD-R comes in a jewel case with an opaque pink CD tray (don't ask me why) with a two-sided insert printed from a home computer. The cover has some "spacy" text and imagery, and the back shows a close-up of sole band member Eros-433 looking like a cross between King Diamond, a member of Kiss, and a very sad goth boy. The disc itself is a tacky name brand CD-R with handwriting on it, and the traycard is mostly text with another cheesy shot of Eros-433's silhouette standing "defiant" in contrast to an "astral" background. As far as the music? Awful atmospheric "black metal" with some of the loudest and most obnoxious, cheesy, overbearing keyboards I've heard... not to mention loud, obnoxious, and cheesy overdramatic vocal sneers. In the far distance are some rugged guitars, bass, and programmed drums... but this music does nothing for me. It has no feeling at all, the tempos are too slow and monotonous, the recording is crap... I mean, what's the point? I assume there's some sort of concept involved as the first three songs are a trilogy with goofy titles like "Hymn of the Nebulae Part I", but I can barely take listening to this. The "enchanted female voices" (compliments of Mandy-C4, whatever that means) in "Journey of Sadness Part III" are almost good, but they sound garbled and compressed or something. I hate to be so negative, but I don't like anything about this demo. It's mildly competent on some level, but not one riff jumps out at me. It's completely boring and immature to me, from the music and the presentation down to the lame band member name(s) and "image". The last track is unlisted, so I don't know what the deal is with that. My advice? Get rid of the keyboards, turn up the guitars, speed things up, take some of the filters off of the vocals, and just play typical, generic, raw black metal. Hell, at least that way there might be some power involved. In this case I'd gladly sacrifice any attempts at originality for at least one good song, but this demo falls short across the board.
[self-released]
Running time - 25:16, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: none of 'em]
Astral Demise - [email protected]
