It’s a brand new year, and our slates have been wiped clean of 2014's bullcrap. We’re starting anew, and the horizon look bright. For and the Heavy Metal Otaku blog, that means new content to put up. As I said in my post last week, I’ve thought up some new things to do here. Case in point, the first of many reviews in the sub-genre of metal reviews known as “Obscurus Metalus”. I didn’t want to do one of the well-known obscure titles (Can there be such a thing?), so for my first in this subset, I want to go for something really out there. All the way to Israel, no less! Without further adieu, here’s a look at the only release of Substance Of God. Let the review begin!
Background
I certainly had a challenge in this album, not to mention the band in question. As I was looking up stuff, there was so little information available that I really can’t detail the history of this band very well, but some details I shall give!
Substance For God is composed of five members: Noam Roda (Bass), Itamar Ben-Zecka'ee (Drums), Asi Yakobovitch (Guitars), Micha Yossef (Guitars), and Alon Moradi (Vocals). They signed up to Nuclear Blast Records, and in 1993 they produced a live promo for the company. In 1994, the band released the full-blown album Assembly Of Flowers, which is their one & only release. In 1996, they filmed a video for “The Swan Song”, which eventually made it’s way to the compilation album “Beauty in Darkness Vol. 1". After this, the band broke up because of reasons I can’t find.
Basic Description
Waste of potential!
For a first outing, Assembly Of Flowers is damn good! The guitar work is very laid back, but never to the point where it feels week. Ben-Zecka'ee’s drumming is fantastic, as it traverses the sharp/soft zones without skipping a beat. Really, the only weak point is the bass, as it’s the only thing on this album that sounds standard. Despite that, there’s moments where it can shine through like everything else. Hell, there’s even small moments of piano work, and it’s some of the most beautiful piano playing I’ve ever heard!
Of particular excellence is the vocals. I’ve never been a fan of the Death/Doom Metal style of singing, but I was caught off guard with this album. Despite having that Cookie Monster type growling, you can still understand what most of Alon Moradi is singing. It’s only a little bit of the time that you can’t make out words, but it happens so little that you can’t even tell. Coupled with female backup vocals on some songs, and you have a basic, yet surprisingly diverse album.
Best Song
Virtually every song on Assembly Of Flowers is a good song. From the title track of the album, to Memorial Prayer, all the way to the final track on here (Which is an instrumental), everything is worth listening to. That said, the best song on here, and my favorite track overall, is track no. 2, otherwise known as The Swan Song. Compared to the other songs on this album, The Swan Song is the fastest that’s on here, but it still knows when to slow down so as to keep things on track. The drumming & guitars are done quite nicely, and the Death Metal style of singing is perhaps the clearest here. You can pretty much understand all of what Alon Moradi is singing, with maybe a second or two of not being able to make sense of thing. With that said, The Swan Song is the best damn track on here, and you should listen to it right away!
The Swan Song
Honorable mention should go to the final track on this album, The Promise. For reasons I’ll get to in a moment, The Promise is a standout song on Assembly Of Flowers, simply because it’s the only song that sounds nothing like anything else on the album. At 1 minute & 46 seconds long, The Promise is one of the most beautiful instrumental tracks I’ve heard in all of Heavy Metal. Nothing but guitar playing carries this entire piece, and the atmosphere it creates is nothing short of enchanting! Sadly, the only link of it on Youtube isn't of good quality, so I won't be posting it. My apologies.
Worst Song
While there are no bad songs on Assembly Of Flowers, it does have the unfortunate “Blending Effect” problem. Eventually, it seems, the songs on this album become one globulus mass. There are points in each of the tunes that can be differentiated from one another, but sooner or later all of the songs begin to sound identical. It’ll get to the point where you can tell where one songs end, and another begins.
Other
While I’m somewhat against the downloading of music, as far as I know Assembly Of Flowers never made it stateside (Although one of my friends has at least heard of it), and considering that it was the band’s only release, that makes it all the more difficult to locate. With that said, there are a few links out there, as long as you know where you look. The link below is one example: I downloaded this album a while back using this link, so it should still work. Let me know if it doesn’t.
http://getmetal.org/doom-metal/59298-substance-for-god-assembly-of-flowers-1994.html
Overall Impression & Rating
Assembly Of Flowers is just a taste of what Substance For God could have given to the Heavy Metal world. The potential for the band is plainly seen, yet because of their disbandment we’ll never know what they could have done. For the rest of time, it seems, we’re left with their only release. It’s a shame really, because Assembly Of Flowers is a nice album to listen to. Despite it’s one major flaw, the music is wonderfully done, and wonderfully produced as well. If you’re looking for an obscure piece of music to surprise you, than Substance For God’s solitary release is exactly what you’re looking for.
Assembly Of Flowers gets a 8.5 out of 10
Well, this was the first of what be many “Obscurus Metalus” reviews. I hope to liked this, and be sure to leave comments & suggestions as to how I can improve my work. See you soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment