Fetish

When one thinks about gothic metal with ethereal female vocals, one thinks about such bands as The Gathering, Within Temptation and Flowing Tears among others. I doubt a lot of people know about this Polish band, Artrosis even though they are not newcomers, having released three albums so far. Their first album Hidden Dimension (Ukryty Wymiar), the English edition, came out in 1998, their second album In Nomie Noctis (W Imie Nocy) in 2000 and their third album, In The Flowers Shade (Posrod Kwiatow I Cieni) in 2001. Artrosis showed a lot of variety and different emotional textures on their previous records, where the band's efforts to find their own identity was omnipresent. There was something great happening in their previous albums, In The Flowers Shade and In Nomie Noctis, a persistence of quality. I thought this band would set some standard in this genre, although the band displayed here and there, some electronic ambiences like the new Theatre of Tragedy. Unfortunately, and that's a great disappointment to me, I don't hear much really exciting happening on this new release. The music sounds more annoying than anything else and reaches only a few times, the high expectation I had for this release. The ethereal singing of Medeah will still enchant anyone who cares for this kind of music, but the music is as flat as the flatline of a dead heart. Their new stuff doesn't have a great variety of styles and moods and really lacks the excitement of their previous work. From my point of view, people who don't know this band should check out In The Flowers Shade, which shows the amazing depth of just how far music can go as far as beauty and creativity. Then if you really like this band as much as I do, then you might want to check out this one.