Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A different direction, May 19, 2005
Y'know, I can completely understand why some people are bashing this album and why longtime Tristania fans might not appreciate it. I am a huge fan of this genre and worship Beyond the Veil as the absolute best Tristania and symphonic goth metal album of all time. Ashes is nothing like Beyond the Veil. It isn't even remotely similar to Widow's Weeds, and has very little in common with World of Glass. I have waited a long time for something new from this European band, and was quite surprised at how different this album is. No choirs, not a lot of acoustic and 12 string guitar. Not very much keyboard or orchestration.
That said, by the time I had spun this disc a half dozen times I was completely mesmerized. What Ashes lacks in substance and layering it more than makes up in atmosphere. I found the album to be a very stark and beautiful masterpiece, easily conveying mood, emotion and poise. It has a more raw and minimalist feel than previous Tristania albums, and comes across as a more personal album.
The more I listen to Ashes, the more aware I become of it's simple brilliance. It certainly is a welcome addition to my CD collection and features some very memorable tracks.
My personal faves: Shadowman, Equilibrium and Bird. The version I have features 9 tracks in total.
Complete tracklisting is:
Libre
Equilibrium
The Wretched
Cure
Circus
Shadowman
The Gate - (bonus track)
Endogenisis
Bird
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Tristania drops Beauty, Mr D. drops Tristania, May 8, 2005
When Morton Veland, the founder and creative genius behind Norwegian B&B band Tristania left to form Sirenia, most pundits thought that signaled a death knell for Tristania. However I thought, yes, but they still have Vibeke Stene. Stene has an hauntingly, alluring, pure voice that is intoxicating to listen to and sure enough, their release of World of Glass on the retreating footfalls of Veland seemed to bare that out. World of Glass was a strong album with Vibeke prominently featured.
In the meantime Veland was rolling along with two and a half (one was an EP) wonderful new albums but he still didn't have Vibeke.
So what did Tristania do on their new album Ashes? They witheld their greatest asset, relegating her to few lead vocals and mostly background vocals. Blaaaah! You guys blew it. Tristania is now more Death Metal than Beauty and the Beast. Death Metal fans may and probably will enjoy this album but I didn't think of them in that light or I wouldn't have wrote about them.
If they're going to so under-utilize Vibeke, they may as well send her packing over to Sirenia so she can reunite with Veland and make their music even better.
Band Members
Vibeke Stenne Vocals
Osten Bergoy Vocals
Kjetil Ingebrethsen Vocals
Kenneth Olsson Drums
Einar Moen Synth and Programming
Rune Osterus Bass
Anders Hoyvik Hidle Guitars
For those not familiar with Tristania, Ashes is their fourth full length album. It was preceded by Widows Weeds (1998), Beyond The Veil (1999) and World of Glass (2001). I would describe their music as Dark, Romantic, Symphonic Gothic, sometimes referred to as Beauty and the Beast music, in reference to the use of "growling" male vocals to offset the sweet, smooth, melodic sound of the female vocals, choirs and symphonic music. This style of music commands more popularity in other parts of the world than stateside, though adherents can be found everywhere. I don't know why they did it (Maybe they had budget concerns concerns with the new label) but they have abandoned some of the main tenets, that the previous three successful albums were built upon, by drifting into an even darker more atmospheric, less symphonic sound. There is very little of the previous sound but I did think three of the eight songs were better than average.
I enjoyed "Equalibrium", "Cure" and "Endogenisis" the best, probably because they were the most similar to the style that I was familiar with. "Equalibrium" starts pleasantly in a medium tempo with Vibeke taking on vocal duties. She is joined shortly by Osten Bergoy who on this number sings with clean vocals. There is nothing special about the music but it is consistent and enhances the pretty vocals. Others may disagree but I think "Cure" is very good. It has an slower atmospheric sad texture and also features Vibeke singing solo. Again the music is not particularly compelling but the overall effect of the song is, especially the wonderful piano playing in the middle backing Vibeke's heavenly voice. At 7:37 "Endogenisis" is the longest of all the songs, which are all fairly long. It starts out with some heavy growling but evolves quickly into a pretty ballad style, ethereal number, featuring clean vocals by Vibeke and Osten with an occasional growl.
Conclusion
Not only did Tristania diminish Vibeke's role in favor of dueling snarling voxes but they got rid of the other factors of beauty like the choirs and violins. What a disappointment! After a four year wait and eagerly anticipating their next release to get this. Now I know how some feel about the new NIN release.
Surprisingly many reviewers think Ashes is a good album, which proves my point that those who enjoy Death Metal would probably think it's great, while those that don't won't. On the other hand there are those who agree with me too. While I don't necessarily agree with everything they go on to say, I do agree that this is not a good album overall. Final Rating 2.75 stars, rounded up.
Similar Bands
After Forever, Trail of Tears, Penumbra, Sirenia, Theatre of Tragedy (old), Azmodan, Haggard
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Organic Mediocrity., February 15, 2005
Tristania, once at the forefront of symphonic and synthetic metal alike, runs the ship aground with their fourth full-length offering. Einar Moen, the keyboardist who was basically the heart and soul of the band, is almost absent from this piece, leaving it to the overachieving but less-than-musically-adept guitarist Anders H. Hidle to run things. The songs have a distinctly modern sound, even bordering on metalcore at times. Anders' riffs are fairly repetitious and boring, and his use of discomforting arrangements and flat notes doesn't help a bit. His playing is somewhat melodic, but lacks any type of aesthetic structuring or technicality, making the listen fairly dull and ambiguous. The growls of Kjetil Ingebrethsen are unintelligible; unlike the crystal-clear sound of Morten Veland and Ronny Thorsen before him, all you hear from KJ is "raargh raargh RAAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!" Vibeke has effectively sealed the fate of her singing career, because she sounds like she went on a chain-smoking binge. There is no texture or emotion in her voice at all, aside from some irritating sighing. Osten Bergoy, the main source of vocal talent in the band, is again confined to back-burner roles. I don't understand this; he writes the lyrics to half the songs, so why doesn't he let himself sing more?
But onto the good points. Rune and Kenneth (bass and drums) are really allowed to shine here, which is good, because Rune in particular is highly underrated in his field. The songs aren't bad per se, but certainly do not measure up to the compositions that Tristania has created in the past. The thing that made Tristania attractive in the first place was the sheer complexity and intricacy of their works, and this new 'organic' direction means that the songs are painfully simple and stripped-down. No choirs at all, save for all three vocalists singing together in "The Wretched." By the way, it has 8 tracks ("Bird," the standout track, isn't listed), and the digipak has 9 ("The Gate" is the bonus; haven't heard it yet). All in all, three long years after the powerful and excellent World of Glass, the band comes back with a woefully weak effort.
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