The Colour Of Magick
Séance Of...
The year 2020 saw the writing of three SEANCE OF... releases, with January 2021 vomiting forth the newest work, "The Colour Of Magick." A ritual in the key of evil, sole member AR pays homage to Black Metal in all its glory with his own morbid metal style. Dual-guitar madness paired with subtle and strange synths, bombastic bass, and demonic drums enchant your ears as Satanic screams curse you for the duration of this spell. The album contains eight untitled tracks.
"1" leads off the album. It's interesting. There is an old school Black Metal blueprint, but done with a few modern touches. The drums change pace from blast beats to more jazzy offerings. The production, however, is pretty bad. "2" begins with some dissonant tones, but it's not long before the chaos ensues. The vocals are fairly standard for the genre, but some of the chord progressions go to intriguing places. "3" opens with a hasty sound, dual guitars, and black beat drums. The harrowing aspect of their music is quite evident...it feels like Halloween in August. As it moves along, you can hear the intricacies in the guitar work, in particular, but I just wish AR would push his vocals in the same manner. Combined with the drums, it gets old after a while.
"4" featured some of the same sounds as the other tracks, and it is becoming evident that the album isn't going to feature much diversity. Although the guitar work is interesting, it isn't going much further than that. "5" begins with even more dissonant tones, with little melody. The main riff presents a loose melody line that jumps here and there. This instrumental at least has a bit of diversity to it. If the production wasn't as bad, you could more clearly hear the bass guitar dancing willfully in the background. "6" is similar in length and sound, and despite the frightening sound, it falls to close to the other tracks to really stand out.
"7" is the longest on the album, at over six-minutes in length. It features those steady kick drums keeping the tempo, a wall of depressive guitar work, which takes over much of the song by the way, and some vocal screams. "8" closes the album, with a less than memorable track. More dissonant guitars dominate the landscape. As it moves forward, you can again can brief moments of clarity in the instruments...just enough to tease you, but not enough to overcome the bad production.
Overall, there just wasn't enough diversity to really enjoy this album. It has moments of breaking away from the mold of the FWOBM, but they were just too fleeting, and the noise in the guitars dominated much of the album. It's a shame too, because if the production were just a little clearer, you could hear more intricacies in the instruments. The album cover is pretty rad, but alas, this Black Metal release is just mediocre at best.
5 / 10
Mediocre
Songwriting
Musicianship
Memorability
Production
"The Colour Of Magick" Track-listing:
1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8
Séance Of... Lineup:
AR - Everything
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