Melange

I can’t believe how much I liked this band on In The Flowers Shade (Posrod Kwiatow I Cieni) and on In Nomie Noctis (W Imie Nocy). Those were a couple of great albums and the disappointment created by Fetish last year was certainly due to a lack of time in between the two albums. In fact, lots of great bands have had a weak album in their discography.

The first song, In A Daze starts like an old pop song from the lame eighties. The tone is set for this album. Melange is the natural continuation of Fetish. Their previous album lacked the finesse and subtlety of their earlier material which was able to capture your attention with a delicate, fragile atmosphere of melancholic beauty. Fortunately, once you have skipped this first song, the band soon finds his way back to melancholy. The way they weave together those beautiful atmospheric melodies and spread feelings through their songs make Artrosis its raison d’être. The ethereal plaintive vocals of Medeah aren’t any better than when the music softens because her voice sounds very mystic and sensitive. Once the band plays more electronic, her voice tends to become more powerful and rather unexpressive. Sometimes I would like to hear some male vocals to give this album a greater metal edge. The whole album is very melancholic and melodic. Songs such as Was It Meant To Be Like That?, Tone Of The Gloom and Somewhere Between have a bunch of great arrangements and haunting melodies. The title track and the bonus track featured on the limited edition are a couple of lame boring instrumental songs that bring nothing to the album.

Melange is somewhat of an improvement over their previous album Fetish. It’s a far more consistent album although there are some minor imperfections on this album. It somehow lacks momentum.

N.B. Song number 7 is Stone Infatuated and not Tone Of The Gloom (again).