Pros: Some pretty good ambient, somewhat mideastern music. Soothing.
Cons: No lyrical vocals. Not a bad thing obviously if you like ambient without.
The Bottom Line: I'd encourage atmospheric/electronic afficiandos to check this out. I like to call stuff like this good elevator music for the metalhead.
supraliminal's Full Review: Ornamentation by Trial Of The Bow
Well, I must say I don't care for much of Relapse Records' ambient/electronic/atmospheric bands (such as the ever boring Amber Asylum), but Trial Of The Bow is actually not only listenable the whole way through but rather enjoyable. It's not at all gothic conjuring visions of dragons, undead, rituals, etc.... more like persian/middle eastern traditional music meeting Lycia with no vocals whatsoever. There is definitely enough going on to create much more than unnecessary droning (see Amber Asylum), the pitfall of most ambient music (at least that I've got my hands on thus far), and is particularly noteable for not relying on a gothic/creepy/evil sound to be so interesting.
The instruments are (to an ear that is admittedly untrained in many traditional instruments) synthetic, samples, keyboards, clean guitars drenched in effects, drum machines, etc., but this detracts nothing from my listening pleasure.
The first track is The Two Sacred Tapestries Of Persia, a nearly six minute ride through a mellow Persian soundscape that begins mellow with chimes and cymbals and a twangy guitar before making me feel like I'm at a traditional persian dance or something with swirling drums and pecussion pumping out a traditional tribal like beat. Some (probably sampled) chants from deep in the soundscape tease the ear like voices from the desert... then I hear a very electronic effect that reminds me a lot of something Lycia would do, just a repeated eerie mist like drone... anyway, the song then fades out with some more rather simple deep chants, leaving me with the impression of having just witnessed a middle eastern traditional dance.
Inverloch is the second cut, another six minutes of persian sounding music, although this sounds less traditional and a bit more like something Lycia or such would do... less twangy guitar, just straight clean tone with lots of reverb, and atmosphere that could be from a lycia album but somehow is neither depressing nor creepy... the chants are very subtle in this song as well as few and far between. The tribal drums are constant, and this element may be what makes the music not seem depressing to me, merely soothing.
From The Mountains Of Tangier follows, incorporating a sampled horn type effect that brings to mind a sheperd or something blowing lonely notes in a mountain... this track has the perkiest tribal percussion yet. Traditional flavored ambience as before... I'm definitely getting visions befitting the song title.
Ornamentation closes the cd, more of the same traditional type music, only sedated and nearly mournful for the most part minus any tribal like drums. It's the perfect lullabye to drift off to evoking dreams of the desert.
This is a pretty decent foray into the ambient/electronic/new age realm, and while I'm not the most knowledgeable listener as far as this stuff goes, persian traditional flavors seem to be a pretty original angle.
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