Review Terra Tenebrosa - The Tunnels 2011

Well, this is said to be a journey (not the band) in a cinematic way through the dark mind and psyche of the monarch of Terra Tenebrosa who is called The Cukoo. The name of the monarch is stupid but the plot sounds rather interesting and added to that we have an album cover in grayscale that looks rather exciting, kind of brings the mind towards great darkish b&w movies like Metropolis, Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon. On paper it looks like this might be something, there is a cloud in the grey skies though and that is the fact that the members call themselves by aliases which I have always found profoundly stupid, kind of like drilling a hole in your head. There are bands that have aliases for members that are good like Dimmu Borgir to name a band, so there is of course still hope and therefore I was a bit excited to actually listen to this band. It is not often I play a new promo just after I have gotten one, the many I have does not allow such a thing but with this one I made an exception.

It starts with a whisper and semi-silence and stuff and things like that before there are some Terminator 2 vibes with the drumming thing but it takes too long and that feel vanishes. Later it moves into something that reminds me of From Dusk ‘til Dawn when there is some pick up in pace and energy. Mainly though there is one word that describes the sound of the album very well and it is vague, that is because there is no real sense of direction kind of like May, it does not seem to be going anywhere. I think that colourless, dark and vague is a good description of how The Tunnels sound, if you require a band that comes close I would say that french band Dirge is close. It would require a change though, change colourless to desert colour or sand colour depending on how you like to describe the colour of the desert.

I must state that I had expected something dark, exciting and hard to really get a grip on, kind of movie like perhaps, I had a dream of Alien once. What I found was that it was colourless, vague, directionless and more like colourless paint drying or if you prefer: alien slime drying. I figured that it may be such an album that was growing so at the same day I gave it another chance and the feeling was… the same but with a strange paining sensation in the stomach. A sense of futility was growing inside and questions were coming. Why? what was it (the band) thinking? what is it’s purpose? what does it want? and now later I have come to ask why there is people saying that they like it? I found some people with positive responses to this when I was searching for facts but the thing is that there are people for everything I guess. I mean Endstille sells albums, Bakteria is allowed to record, Lady GaGa sells lots of music and so on and so forth and the thing is that it is as mysterious as cooking or stupidity. I doubt that a wider audience really like things like this, thing is though that there is always a small group that think Dirge are genial in their monotone way or that The Matrix is based on some truth or think that From Dusk ‘til Dawn is a cleaver movie in its terribleness. A lot like that will probably like probably like Dirge or Terra Tenebrosa.

I might get the band sending me hatemail now which happened last time I wrote a long review with a low score, but I am not after bashing the band in a long text I just required that to describe what it is I have heard and what to expect from this album. And for this album the point is that for me music should have a direction, I think it should go somewhere if it is through the songs or from start to finish on the album, but an album needs to have a way travelled to be good and that is something that is missing from this album, completely. It is as I have already stated vague and directionless. It is also monotone with some random bursts of something that can only be described as random noise.

I think it is best said as the fact that if this album was a map and you were in a system of tunnels, you would never find your way out of the tunnels. And as if that wasn’t enough you also would have to repeatedly end up in a room where From Dusk ‘til Dawn was playing repeatedly and you would be more and more stressed and hurrying more and more to get out but what you actually end up doing is to quickly rush yourself to death.

This album is opening with a song called The Teranbos Prayer and above that track in my playlist on the music player is Ten and the third song counting upwards from The Teranbos Prayer is an excellent example of the span of musical direction the rock genre. That track is The Hourglass and the Landslide by Ten and it illustrates everything that is good about rock music, The Teranbos Prayer is rather the opposite to be honest and to find another track that is this discouraging from listening to the rest of the album will be really difficult.

I think that you will be wise to avoid this if you like music, melodies, musical direction, good vocals and whatever else is good in music. If you like music to be monotone, grey, gurgling, then maybe this is for you. I think this album is a bit like getting acid in your eyes so the directive for this album is: if you like acid in your eyes, buy this album.

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Terra Tenebrosa The Tunnels

Terra Tenebrosa
The Tunnels