supraliminal's Full Review: Cosmic Genesis by Vintersorg
Whoops... I titled the review for ...And Oceans' A.M. G.O.D. album the best metal of 2001, but I forgot this album was released in January.... they are very different, so I'm not going to struggle with which one I want to call better, suffice to say this album is right up there too. Vintersorg seems to usually be called black metal, but that's like calling Opeth death metal, or saying Amorphis's Elegy album was still death metal.... pretty useless and innacurate. Much like Opeth, within the same song can be found a lot of different styles, instruments, and clean and snarled vocals. That's about where the similarity ends, for that matter I can't really think right off the top of my head any band that Vintersorg reminds me of.... points to Vintersorg for originality.
Vintersorg actually uses more clean vocals on this album than snarling or growling, and let me be the one to tell you he has an impressive voice.... sometimes though his vocals are a bit awkward sounding, and I'm not sure if this is because he doesn't quite know what to do with his voice or if he was just going for a sound/tone my ear doesn't appreciate. In any case, musically Vintersorg is here, there, and every freakin' where on the spectrum. Hard and heavy to soft and mellow with acoustic and clean tone guitars, to scandanavian traditional music, bass rolls to rock beats to blast beats, grinding frenetic rhythms to beautiful leads. Pretty much every track has some of everything, so breaking down track by track would be a bit monotonous (this song has some of everything.... and so does this one... oh this one too!), so I'll just mention some highlights.
My favorite song on the album is the third track titled Dialogue With The Stars, which is pretty catchy and groovy to the point of being something that you might hear on the radio if only it weren't so heavy, talented, and filled with snarling verses. I suppose the break with piano, tribal drums, and a weird seventies sounding flute thing probably doesn't speak to the masses like it should either... point being this is the catchiest song on the album.
Astal And Arcane, the album opener, is noteable for perhaps fooling one into thinking this album would be as blackish as Vintersorg's previous album (Till Fjalls), until the parade of styles progresses beyond the blast beating chaos. Vintersorg shows some nice vocal range on this track, which is good since his snarl kind of sucks in this song. Vintersorg tries to harmonize vocally towards the end of the track, and usually pulls it off beautifully, but a moment or two gives the awkward feeling noted above.
Algol features a strange circus top like sound as an intro, and little snarling vocals until the end, which serves to accentuate the feeling of building up to a climax of sorts.
The title track's defining moments are another interesting intro (a very mellow far off sounding little sound bite), a long spoken word/prose vocal piece, and perhaps the best all around vocal performance on the album. The main rhythm has a galloping/flying feel to it, evoking images of an earthly genesis more than cosmic, despite the cosmic lyrical content.
Om Regnbagen Materialis is a fairly mellow piece (frequent double bass rolls notwithstanding) performed in Vintersorg's native tongue. Pieces and breaks featuring acoustic guitars also abound.
Ars Memorativa features a very impressive and uninhibited vocal performance. The unique sounds here even include a strange synth piece that sounds like it came from a Scooby Doo cartoon.
Rainbow Demon gets a thumbs down for track title (a song about a rainbow demon just doesn't interst me) and a cheezy seventies synth-organ sound... probably the album's weakest track, but noteable for Vintersorg utilizing the deeper end of his clean range. The short solo near the end almost redeems the song, if only it would've been extended and been the finale.
Naturens Galleri is another song in Vintersorg's native language, but noteable for the fact his performance is so good that having no idea what he is saying doesn't really bother me.
Enigmatic Spirit closes the album on an epic and somber note, the guitars staying acoustic/clean, though the double bass drums are ever present which is pretty interesting... fades away into a haunting little flute sounding moaning death that makes me want to press play again.
Well, this review seemed to me to be a bit vague as I wrote it, but this is precisely because it is hard to pin down an accurate description of Vintersorg's sound on this album. If you like the way Opeth uses every style imaginable, often in the course of one song, but always wished they had smoother segues and transitions... Cosmic Genesis is what you've been looking for. If you are looking for innovative and intelligent metal with talent that stands out, Cosmic Genesis is again what you are looking for. I cannot recommend this specifically to any taste, other than to say if you like your metal to be devoid of clean vocals then you want to avoid this album..... everyone else, give this a spin, it's an incredible experience.
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