Another Messiah are a Dutch Doom formation that incorporate more influences than your every day "guaranteed to fuck your woofers up" riffage and "angry gorilla" gruntage.

 

Switching between uptempo thrashy riffs, gothical keyboard and classical material, back to slower swaying melodies, this group has enough atmosphere to lighten up any living room. One thing that is quite cool and refreshing is the usage of a oboe (!!) in various songs. Surprisingly this classical instrument that has a very distinctive sound of it's own blends in very nicely with the material. But the oboe aside it has be said taht this album would have been a absolute hit with a bigger recording budget (not their fault obviously) it is probably worth purchasing if one enjoys the above. One thing you might stumble across is the clean vocal parts, that just has to be your cup of tea.

 

If there's one group this band faintly reminds me off, it has to be Opeth. Calling them 'the Dutch Opeth' would be blasphemy considering the status of the Swedish band, but then again, to date I have not been able to make a better comparison.

 

Song writing is okay, even though I find the disc more a enjoyable collection of riffs, oboe bashing (I like that term) and brutal grunts then a truely fine selection of songs. No real new stuff here, but the simple fact that these Dutchies know what they have to do to achieve a cool metal sound saves the day. This is a record for the fans of the genre, for the collectors. As for the productional sound: I bet this band sounds better live than on this cd. I'll check em out on stage some day. But I'm not sure I would have bought it in a store.

 

Some highlights; "And Now I Will", "I Never Noticed" "Dead Man Walking" and close-down "The Queen Bee". And check out the cool way this disc ends. Don't be misleaded by the intro;)

Oboe metal up your ass!