Nottingham's Twilight's Embrace is a five piece progressive doom/death outfit. With only an EP under their belt, Traces acts as the band's first taste of new music in two years, again acting as an EP. As far as sound goes, they're pretty cookie cutter "gothic" death/doom, with Opeth flirtations thrown in on occasion. The guitars are full of heavy distortion but also cascade the backdrop so that you're not given a brutal trip, but more so a depressingly somber jerker. The occasional use of acoustic guitars also throws in that Opethy folkish element, which helps break up the monotony of the tracks.
The biggest complaint to me is the vocalist's soft vocals, which are heavily British and just just sound corny 99.9% of the time he does them, it's almost like watching a slam poet try too hard to sound meaningful, it just comes off as silly.His growls are fun, but again are pretty standard for this type of music, and there are tons of bands who sound almost identical to his. And this problem reaches to pretty much every aspect of the band, the guitars, the vocals, and the overly simplistic drumming, it's just too predictable. Aside from a few moments there really is nothing that stands out on this release that would make me want to listen to it repeatedly. Again I am not hating it, it's just not something I connect with and I feel as if I have heard this album done time and time again by more established and skilled musicians. The final gripe I have with this is the fact that almost every lead and build up leads nowhere, it's like getting a lengthy handjob and getting an arm ache 2 minutes from busting.
But hey, the production is well done, the mixing was done right and it's not a pain in the ass to listen to, so check it out, maybe you'll like it. But to me it gets a big fat meh.
SHIT RATING: ALRIGHT
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