Unexpect - Fables Of the Sleepless Empire

This album screams cheese. If you enjoy this stuff then I don't know whether to be sorry for trashing it or sorry for you,

I've outgrown this stuff. I might've enjoyed this years ago, but Unexpect's Fables Of The Sleepless Empire is everything I absolutely hate about flamboyant, noodling "progressive" metal. The band's juvenile attempts at being "avant-garde" come off as half-baked and cheesy. Symphonic elements - violins, operatic female vocals, neo-classical guitars, and some of the most fruity keyboards this side of Cradle Of Filth - rule Fables Of The Sleepless Empire from beginning to end. There was a time where I thought Kalisia was tolerable, and Persefone was pretty badass, but now is not that time.

As long as you understand that, you can go ahead and dismiss (or applaud) the rest of this review.

Structurally speaking, most of these songs are actually fairly predictable in that they have different movements that build to a particular climax. That's about all they have going for themselves though. Otherwise you're subject to a forgettable and disorganized blur of arpeggiations emanating from both guitar and keyboard. Talented but trite female vocals really dampen the excitement offered by the flurry of instruments. Add some forced, high-pitched harsh vocals underneath the female lead and you have a recipe for me getting a headache. This headache peaked during the first half of noodle-synthfest "Mechanical Phoenix" and didn't go away until I walked away from my damn speakers.

Now that I think about it, my hatred for this album - piss poor songwriting aside - might be due to it not being "heavy." I've heard acoustic folk albums heavier than this. Atmospherically speaking Fables Of The Sleepless Empire falls flat on its face. Why? Because there isn't any atmosphere. Unexpect even manages to botch the atmosphere in longer tracks where they have time to build like "Unfed Pendulum," and did I just hear fucking palm-muting? Seriously that was some of the weakest palm-muting I've ever heard this side of newer Whitechapel. This is largely because of the no bass, ultra compressed production values present throughout the album. The snare sounds flat and the pillow bass drum is insanely aggravating. There's no escaping them either, except for when this shit stops spinning.

At least the musicians have a degree of talent. It's just a shame they decided to waste it on this pretentious, musically inept album.

3.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	Unsolved Ideas of a Distorted Guest
2.	Words
3.	Orange Vigilantes
4.	Mechanical Phoenix
5.	The Quantum Symphony
6.	Unfed Pendulum
7.	In the Mind of the Last Whale
8.	Silence this Parasite
9.	A Fading Stance
10.	When the Joyful Dead Are Dancing
11.	Until Yet a Few More Deaths Do Us Part

Monumental Torment - Element Of chaos

Two things that Monumental Torment is devoid of.

One of the most overbearingly stupid albums of 2011, Monumental Torment burst onto the technical death metal scene with their debut album Element Of Chaos. Ironically enough they broke up shortly afterwards, and certainly not to my dismay. Monumental Torment seems to be of that brand of technical death metal: the kind that is devoid of low-end, lacks brutality, and is filled with frenzied noodling and pointless sweeping. It's a first-class exercise in guitar douchery and the whole album feels like an attempt at appealing to teenagers with ADD rather than discriminating fans of metal.

Being overly harsh on this blue turdstain of an album? Not in the slightest. This abomination is everything wrong with technical death metal today. The electronic drumkit and the obnoxious lack of low-end on the bass and bass drum really kills any sort of aggression. Similar to Brain Drill, there's buttloads of predictable blastbeats and "off" rhythms that I'm sure the band thought were classy showcases of their supposed talent. The bassist's dry tone is really apparent in the few emotionless solos he plays. Throw in an overabundance of sweeps (even piano arpeggios!), like those found on the throwaway tracks "Lethargic Sleep" and "Mental Slavery," and suddenly Element Of Chaos feels like it should have "TRYING TOO HARD" stenciled on it in big, blocky hXc scene letters. If you're looking for virtuosic talent, look elsewhere because Element Of Chaos will beat you over the head with its blatant disregard for decent songwriting.

The good part about riff salad is that there's always a few pieces worth ingesting. This album has a few notable standout riffs, like the outro on the aforementioned "Mental Slavery." There's a few semi-interesting tapping solos, and the song "Paradox" is actually listenable. The title track is the definition of obnoxious, and the band decided to take the never-done-before path and include an ambient outro. Go figure. I guess I shouldn't have been expecting too much considering their Oppression Submission demo was pretty subpar and included the three forgettable tracks "Millenium Of Death," "Oppression Submission," and that annoying-as-sin "Lethargic Sleep." Oh well. We can't all be winners.

2.0 out of 10

You're better off listening to Archspire, or just about anything else that came out in 2011.

Tracklisting:

1.	Nameless One
2.	Slaughter House
3.	Lethargic Sleep
4.	Mental Slavery
5.	Oppression Submission
6.	Seek to Destroy
7.	Paradox
8.	Millenium of Death
9.	Element of Chaos
10.	Last Voice of Future