Customer Reviews

Tabula Rasa (Bonus CD)

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4 star:		(1)
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This has got to be my favorite cd in my ever growing cd collection, and it has been my favorite ever since it came out. These guys bleed musical talent. This cd encompasses so much emotion, so much passion, and so much violence that its impossible to describe it. You have to listen to it in order to experience it.

This was my very first EN album (with the bonus tracks), and I think because of that, it was the only one in my collection for a long time.

To explain, this is the CD where EN begin to really open up and explore more of what they do less, and it's much more obvious. Earlier EN can be slow and ambient, quiet and almost peaceful at times, but done in such a way that it harmonizes perfectly with their grating noise and drones (listen to '5 On The Open-Ended Richterscale and it's really obvious) but with this album they tried maybe a little too hard to be either noisy or quiet, though on some tracks (like the best on the album, 'Zebulon' it works very well in heavy contrast). Honestly though, most of the tracks are just, well, a little dull, like the Headcleaner series, a clear nod to their earlier recordings and Sie, which for some reason I just don't care for much. But what does save the album are the great extras, like 'The Interimlovers' an english sung, more ambient version which I love, and Salamandrina, an excellent acapella track (simply to say, I like the supplementary disc more than the album).

But still, even as my least favorite EN album, I absolutely love it; this is one group of which I never tire, and while I clearly have grievences toward it, the few tracks I love really work it for me. I guess the best thing to say in closing would be: buy an edition with the bonus tracks (or, if you're a true completist, find Interim and Malediction, which were the original releases of the said tracks).