One Master – Forsaking a Dead World
One Master have moved away from clinging to the more weighty strands of death metal in their fuzzed out sound, to fully embrace the bitter cold of straight up black metal. Musically, “Forsaking a Dead World” strikes me as a very relaxing trip due to the simple lines in the music and One Master’s knack for writing dissonantly melodic guitar lines centering around the 6/8 time signature. It becomes very easy for the listener to fall deep into the hypnotic buzz of the guitars and the progressions. “Chill of the Grave” and “I, Magus” are both very well written songs that stand out as this bands best work to date due to the emotion and atmosphere on display. In fact I prefer One Master to keep the tempo loping along, for faster tracks like “The Test” and “Unholy Grimness” just feel a bit clunky and forced, although “Master of the Past and Present” digs in with some very twisted riffs that demonstrate this bands obvious love for deeply underground black metal. Other than the thin/sloppy production and equally sloppy playing at times, the only other real setback for this band is the vocals. Sufficiently harsh screams are on display, but Valder does lack the depth and diversity in his pipes needed to really break up this monotonous performance. Plus he’s playing guitar as well, so the vocal lines tend to become a bit predictable, but he gets the job done, being a suitable enough screamer to keep the band moving forward until someone with a more interesting set of hell pipes can step into the position. “Forsaking a Dead World” features some really promising music from a band that is paying their dues as they fight to find themselves. This CD is definitely worth a closer inspection should you feel like seeing what’s up-n-coming in the US black metal scene. – Marty
Web: http://www.one-master.net
Email: One.master@hotmail.com
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