Customer Reviews

Echoes from the Ground

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Paramaecium's much anticipated fourth album incorporates elements of prior works as well as a few new twists, including some groove-oriented material. The style is mostly mid-paced doom metal similar to their third album, A Time to Mourn, but with more instrumentation and complexity, as is found in their album, Within the Ancient Forest. But while there is much to enjoy in the new album, it appears that nothing will surpass the power and creativity of the old Tompkins/De Ron/Burton/Sherlock line-up.

Production is good for the most part. The most noticeable area of improvement is that the rhythm guitars aren't EQed as well as one might like. I'll need to listen to it more carefully through some studio headphones before I can be sure, but it sounds like there's a bit too much boost in the 2K-3K range, and perhaps in the 600Hz-800Hz range as well. As a result, at times the guitar comes off sounding a bit too "fuzzy" for doom metal

As was the case with A Time to Mourn, most of the rhythm tracks are rather simple compared to those on the Exhumed of the Earth and Within the Ancient Forest albums. I suspect that this is due to the departure of Jason DeRon and Chris Burton from the band. Also, I would have liked to see Andrew Tompkins incorporate more of his growling style into the songs on which he sings. Specifically, in my "mind's ear" I can hear him backing up or trading off with growls on the tracks, "Night Fears Morning," "They Tend to Die," and "I," as he did with Tracy Bourne on the track, "My Failing Heart." This was a nice feature of the Within the Ancient Forest album on tracks like "Song of the Ancient" and "Gone is My Former Resolve," and I think it would have made Echoes from the Ground an even better album.

Despite all this, there is much for doom metal fans to enjoy in Echoes from the Ground, and although it may not be Paramaecium's best album, it's still a worthy purchase.