Band:
Oddleif Stensland—vocals and guitars
Erik Mortensen—bass
Tor Atle Andersen—drums
Discography:
Conspiracy in Mind (2005)
Waves of Visual Decay (2006)
Payment of Existence (2008)
Guests:
Info
Released 22/7-2011
Reviewed 25/7-2011
Links:
communic.org
myspace
nuclear blast
As I stated before, this is the fourth album of the band and they do have a lot to live up to as the prior three albums have received great reviews and fan response. I have not heard any of those albums so I cannot comment on those or compare the albums. I saw some mixed opinions on this album when I was browsing the interweb for the information that we fill out our reviews with, no one seemed to think it was bad but there were a few saying it was average.
Before I rave about what I think of this album we will look at how it sounds. It has a really massive sound which is like a wall of music, comprised of many layers and it could best be described as very heavy and like being hit by a wall of sound. If you have heard Nevermore or the album Of Human Bondage with Angel Dust you have a good basis to base your guesstimation of the band’s sound on. Speaking of Nevermore, there are more similarities as the vocalist Oddleif sound very similar to the singer of Nevermore but also a tad like Messiah of Candlemass. He has a powerful voice and sings in an almost massing tone for most of the album, making him seem rather powerful as you listen to the album. It should also be said that the band base their music in the progressive world which means that their music is a bit adventurous but even so they remain quite near the threaded paths which they establish in the early part of the album, the detours are quite small. Nine tracks and fifty five minutes of music is what this album offers and it should be said that fifty five minutes is usually on the long side, it is progressive metal though which can sometimes mean that longer album may work.
What about Communic then? Are they as good as the label and many critics want you to think? There is not really an easy answer to this but I will tell you first that I really like the majestic sound they produce as well as the powerful vocals of Oddleif which harmonise really well with the sound. But the tracks I like do not conform to this sound as they are of lower tempo and with a lot less of the majestic sound, scaled down and slowed down songs it can be described as. The tracks I mean are the fourth which is called Voyage of Discovery and the title track which ends the album and also stand as the high note of it. Worth mentioning here is the penultimate song as well Wayward Soul which feels connected to the ending track and therefore feels like it belongs.
But the real thing is that this album has a few problems, for starters there is too much of this majestic and impressive sound making it feel a bit unvaried which of course is not entirely true as there is variation in terms of the tracks I mentioned. This in turn makes the album feel a bit too long, like one or two songs should go in order to at least make the album be shorter than fifty minutes. I find myself often jumping past track five and six or six and seven in order to get towards the end quicker as I feel like there is a bit much on this album making it less of a treat to play through the entire thing while waiting to hear the ending title track, I am not saying that these tracks are worse than the other just that the first three is alright because you know there must be something different soon while the mentioned tracks are just more of the same it feels like so I just pass them to get to the end quicker.
The ending track is a real treat, otherwise this album feels like very many of the albums I have reviewed this year: it is good but that little bit extra is missing. But I will at least save the last track on my music player when removing the album to make space for new music to review. So: good but not good enough with a great end is a fitting description of The Bottom Deep.
HHHHHHH
