HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (Gold From The Sea) CD
I've a fleeting memory about that French band, and if I hadn't received their first full-length album 'Gold From The Sea' I would've forgotten about their existence. That's not sad, because their second demo from 2006 was nothing that I really enjoyed. Cheesy keyboard sounds, a weak production and third-class riffs is something that causes a huge lack of interest in my mind. But everyones deserves a second chance, and so I've listen to 'Gold from the Sea' for many times. This album has been released by Obskure Sombre Records in 2008 and consists of four songs, whereby the running time ranges from five minutes to almost sixteen minutes. Well, I can detect some sort of development, but nonetheless here are too much elements that spoil the fun for me such as the excessive use of weird keyboard sounds. It can be very nice for a time as in the opener 'The Voodoo that you do', where the first minutes remind me to the soundtracks of John Carpenter but after a few minutes I just feel plain bored. The song trudges along without any drive or power, and the pathetic vocals of Twylyght don't make it better. JC Alienseed's bass and drums are hidden under a carpet of low-fi keyboard sounds and I feel much better when the song is over after 10:58 minutes.
'Dead Man Shed No Tears' starts with some nice heavy bass riffs and evolves into a much better song than the opener. The band still sound as if they have swallowed two bags of downers, but for my taste the result is more interesting. It sounds doomy and out of touch with the world and everything else. 'Hiding Mask' is a cover from The Obsessed classic, and I don't know if I should like it or if I should cry. I have to admit that it doesn't sound uninteresting, and it's more a tribut than a rape. Aside from that 'Hiding Mask' is just a wonderful love song and HotBM is definitely well aware of that fact. Unfortunately, they've integrated too much synths, but I can tolerate it. The last track is 'Gold from the Sea' and it's an epic journey through the bizarre world of HotBM. Within 15:33 minutes I can listen to everything that I like and hate about the band. A few samples here and there keep my interest but after seven minutes the dramatic vocals and the awful tones from the keyboards kill my interest. Sorry, but all that reminds me to the worst gothic schlock. At least, I like to lose a few more words about the tasteful artwork that looks like one of the old EC comics from the 1940's or 1950's, but as always it's only the music that counts and as for my part there won't be much moments in my life when I feel the urge to play this disc... most probably never again.
(KK)