| The
Review |
It’s pretty easy to find yourself judging a book by its
cover. We do it all the time, whether we admit it or not.
That was me upon seeing the new release from a band called
Invisigoth with their first recording called Alcoholocaust.
“I’ll bet I know what this will sound like” I said to myself.
And then I put the disc in the player. All was not what it
seemed. In fact Invisigoth wasn’t actually a ‘band’; it was
two people; Cage who deals with all the instrumentation and
Viggo Domino who handles the vocals.
The CD Alcoholocaust starts off with “Stripsearch” a short
(4:32) but very aggressive crunchy guitar and staccato style
that immediately brings to mind everything prog-metal but
then track two “Ancient” has an almost epic-movie sound filled
with acoustic strumming and a Byzantine rhythm supported by
Sitar-ish accents. In fact the nine tracks here all have a
huge sound. When I said epic-movie I mean big. The music is
full, rich in dynamics, giant swells of notes and huge crescendos.
The actual sound alternates between the heavier guitar and
vocals and a more moody drama. The vocals tend to be mostly
on the dramatic side following the melodic structure of the
music as opposed to carving out its own path. And that works
really well in this case. The music created by Cage is far
more varied that you might image at first glance. Some songs
like “Poison Drip” have that metal, double kick-drum going
on, only to make room for a gothic drama developed by loads
of keyboards. But throughout these compositions are moments
of great contrast, moving fully away from the more aggressive
side and incorporating elements of majesty and drama. This
is, and I hate to keep repeating myself, epic-scale music.
If you need some reference points, the music and style
of Invisigoth had moments of Dream Theater, Therion and Carptree
mixed together. This is definitely a disc you don’t want to
judge based on first impressions. Repeated listening brought
out all kinds of details I missed first time around. I have
to say, I’m glad I gave Invisigoth a chance. It would have
been too easy to simply cast it straight into the prog-metal
section. Instead I found there was a lot more going on here
than first meets the ear. Thoroughly enjoyable!
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