Genre: Dark Ambient/Doom Metal with industrial overtones
This is where the dream ends
where the soul of every man and woman is broken
where you carry your crippled children in hope of salvation
and lay them down to die
salvation does not came
where the worth you have
placed upon your life is finally revealed as nothing
your weeping and wailing shall assauge no god
let these words echo deep in your heart
for you shall hear them
again and again
cease your weeping and wailing
no one can hear you
my words will cut your flesh like a knife.
If you even remotely like doom metal or dark music in general, get this one now... don't wait. Not dark as in my girlfriend just broke up with me I wanna go slit my wrists waaah waaaaah emo trash, dark as in World War II, which is what this album is actually about. How to best describe it, maybe like Apocalypse Now in music form. The whole album describes a twisted hell, where there is seemingly no hope, no way out. Welcome to the battleground.
With their first album, Void of Silence started out as a very depressive, doom metal/dark ambient with black metal and industrial overtones, and improved upon this style with their second one, but in Human Antithesis their old vocalist who did mostly black metal style screams left and was replaced by Nemtheanga of Primordial fame. This alone was an improvement because of the improved versatility he offers: he shifts between more traditional doom styled mournful clean vocals, deep death metal style growls, and occasionally also uses higher pitched screams and spoken vocals. The music itself is also evolved, perhaps because they got more versatility with their new vocalist, and definitely for the better. The black metal influences are all but gone except for in some of the riffs, and I guess the ambient has taken a back stage too, to make way for a more melodic gothic/death-doom sound. The average song is much longer and also more progressively structured, they form more of actual compositions then simply soundscapes based on repetition. There's also a distinct cold, dirty industrial feel throughout, which allows them to keep their bleak atmosphere of the previous albums while adding more music and melody on top.
I guess the simplest way to put this is that while their other two albums got their atmosphere mostly from what *isn't* there, Human Antithesis instead crushes you with what *is* there. So you might find this more haunting and scary than depressive and desolate, especially if you aren't used to music of this nature. I'd still recommend this to almost any fans of music as long as you find darkness appealing, doom metal and industrial fans should obviously love this, but I really think even prog and gothic metal (note: not the cheese thats often confused with gothic metal) fans can jump in to this one and enjoy it although there's absolutely nothing joyful about their music.
Rating: 10.0/10
