Aquarius Records: Search Results for Title: Empiricism
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album cover BORKNAGAR Empiricism (Century Media) cd 14.98
Borknagar record number four I think (maybe 5, but who's counting?) and I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is maybe my favorite Borknagar record so far. The sound has changed quite a bit thanks to a new singer, a new keyboardist and a new songwriting strategy (that in some ways is unavoidable with half the band being new) but nothing is lost. 'Empiricism' is ridiculously catchy for a black metal record with enough clean singing (courtesy of new singer Vintersorg from...uh, the band Vintersorg) that if you stumbled in on this record at the wrong moment you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to Dark Tranquility or even Arcturus. The first track is surprisingly melodic, with a wash of strings and gentle piano under the roar of thunderous blast beats and howled guttural vocals that occasionally slip into soaring majestic clean vocals (sounding quite a bit like Katatonia). The record vacillates between melodic beauty, almost circus-y bombast and melancholy fury. And the production is really strange, there's almost no guitar at all. I mean, it's there, but there's so much going on, TONS of keyboards, noodly and droning and everything in between (courtesy of one half of black metal weirdos Solefald), acoustic guitars, fake flutes, chanting, burbly bass, that the guitar often disappears completely. Which would normally drive me crazy, but in this case, the songs are so catchy and the melodies are so memorable that it just seems like that's the way it's supposed to sound. This new sound really suits them. If this record weren't so good I would posit that Borknagar were making a bid for 'the big time'. But there's still enough musical misanthropy and hateful aggressiveness to keep that from happening anytime in the near future.
RealAudio clip:
"The Genuine Pulse"
RealAudio clip: "Gods Of My World"
RealAudio clip: "Matter + Motion"

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