Customer Reviews

A Velvet Creation

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First off, why is the wrong album cover displayed? This isn't Naglfar's "Vittra" album, this is actually from an underrated and overlooked Swedish melodeath band called Eucharist. Go to metal-archives for more information.

Eucharist plays the style of music that tends to be in the same vein along with other fellow vintage melodeath bands like Edge of Sanity and At The Gates. This features current Arch Enemy drummer Daniel Erlandsson (and At The Gates/former The Haunted drummer, Adrian Erlandsson's, brother) behind the kit, and skilled he is. However, I think that the raw guitar sounds played are what make this album stand out the most. The production is far from the best, but it fits fine along with the many other vintage 90's Scandinavian releases.

If you enjoy the following albums:
"Skydancer" by Dark Tranquillity
"Unorthodox" by Edge of Sanity
"The Red In The Sky Is Ours" by At The Gates

Pick this up!

This is a review for the original (without the bonus tracks that would later appear in WAR compilations.) So with that said, on with my review... where do I start? Lemme get this out of the way: this is one of those cases of "what could have been" similar to Carcass' "Reek of Putrefaction." Carcass' debut had some good songs and some crappy songs, but it was marred by bad production. Eucharist's debut, similarly, suffers from weak production (for the guitars, though- the rattliness of the possibly detuned acoustics, seeing as how Eucharist tunes to B. The drums sound decent enough, vocals are well recorded and the bass, while not my choice in tone, is represented in a competent fashion.) The main problem with the production is guitars as I mentioned. Keep in mind this is a METAL ALBUM!!! The guitars are the HEART of the sound. Enough of that. The music itself is first-rate all the way- cleverly written and arranged- plenty of tempo changes and quite a few great odd-time segments, and just great, well-written riffs, the harmonies are always engaging, though there a handful of things I'll moan and groan about. First: not enough of guitar solos. For whatever reason, Eucharist decided that it wouldn't fit some of the songs to have solos. Not that they're ABSOLUTELY necessary to a song, but I'm a guitarist myself- I'm not asking for huge Vai-styled pyrotechnics but atleast a few licks here and there would suffice though some solos do appear in the second half of the album. And another thing: "The Religion of Blood-Red Velvet" get old pretty quick. It's not a bad song, it's just that the song is a bit too long and doesn't exhibit enough material to warrant its length. It sounds like the review doesn't fit with the 4 stars I gave it. Well, production and slight stylistic matters aside, everything is simply awesome!! So much creativity in this album is present- the top-notch drumming in general (specifically, great cymbal work and wonderful use of hemiola on the snare towards the end of opener "Greeting Immortality"), great use of acoustic guitars, and I can't get enough of that guitar segment in "Floating" using delay or whatever it is to soften the attack on the guitar, giving it an almost synth-like quality. The bonus tracks I've downloaded (no point in making a long and hard search for out of print material and paying too much for it) are as I said, from compilations. "The Predictable End" is a wonderful, largely odd-time piece. A bit repetitive, but such a wonderful, emotive song!!! Beautiful! I forget the name of the other song, and it is also a great song as well. BUY THIS ALBUM!!!! It might take a bit of growing on to but it is well worth it I assure you!!