Cronian — Erathems
Viewed from a certain perspective, the album is metal without bite, has absolutely no balls, and is obviously not "true" metal. Indeed, the band's goal is not to display brute power, and though the drummer does frequently engage in heavy double bass and proliferations of snare, it seems primarily designed to accentuate the soaring harmonized choruses and epic, orchestrally augmented chord progressions that sound ripped straight from a heroic fantasy film soundtrack, typically from the moment where our hero charges fearlessly into the battle to end all battles, and likely his own death, the fate the of the world hanging in the balance.
I didn't know what to make of this music for several listens of the entire album; much like actual opera, the overwrought, gushing emotion is somewhat lost on me. I'm huge fan of Emperor, and many of the melodies and clean vocals here have a similar sound to their later material, or Ihsahn's solo material, however this album overall seems to drag in an indecisive mid-paced plod, never quite getting off the ground or achieving the hugeness it is clearly striving for with layers upon layers of guitars, keyboards and vocals. Perhaps they should have used a few less samples of church bells and the like, the songs feel drowned in overproduction. There is no real ebb and flow because they hit you full density at all times.
The beautiful guitar lead that I genuinely enjoy is rare, though it does occur several times throughout the album. The guitar playing is frustratingly obscured by the fact that the band feels the need to harmonize literally every note and chord with additional synthetic instrumentation. Just as I'm beginning to hone in on the guitar, waves of synth enter. I'm a huge fan of electronic music, but I have a hard time taking the sparkly, preset orchestral synth sounds here seriously. The plucked 'pizzicato' sounds are particularly cringe-worthy.
I find the attitude redundantly melancholic, as if they're writing music for their depressive goth audience, the same feeling I get from bands like Katatonia, who, while good songwriters, seem to write song after song, album after album, in the same maudlin, regretful realm, a realm I find to be miserable to dwell in for too long. Borknagar certainly had a triumphant element that is toned down on this album.
Every track feels like a ballad, and I don't think many could deny this is 'cheesy'. I find the music aesthetically and melodically enjoyable, but I can't claim to be taking the emotional ride the musicians clearly want me to experience. I can't claim to enjoy this as much as Borknagar... I'm only familiar with the "Empiricism" record, but if memory serves it has exactly the energy and vitality this album lacks.
The lyrics aren't terrible, but they're sufficiently awkward at times to result in an eye roll. The chorus of "Drifting Station" is "I am collecting evolution / in the north pole's aeon's old ice", and hearing the vocalists' strained melisma on the word 'evolution' leaves me wondering why they chose such inexpressive and clumsy wording. The song "Moments and Monuments" has the repeated sing songy chant of "Moments and monuments, that's who we are", and not only do I find the statement relatively meaningless, I feel like I've heard it before.
In conclusion, "Erathems" sounds like a symphonic metal record by musicians who have written countless others, and this time, they didn't end up with one of their more memorable or inspired pieces. While the songs are reasonably varied in structure, they all take the same tone, tempo and overdone production style, and I certainly find the album tedious long before it ends. If ever there was an overproduced metal album, it's this one, and added sounds ruin otherwise affecting songs such as "Chemical Dawn". I would encourage the band to think more about the narrative experience of the album as a whole, and to vary their formula, as "Erathems" sounds like something of a creative rut to me.
I find myself wishing many of these ideas existed in some other more tolerable musical context (i.e. many of the synths removed), but I'm sure there are many fans out there who perfectly click with this attitude, and will eat this record up, so by all means, if you're a big fan, don't let me stop you from investigating "Erathems". In my case, it does not give me my metal fix, nor fulfill my desire for depressive ethereal sounds.