Band:	Illnath
Album:	Third Act In The Theatre Of Madness
Style:	Symphonic black metal
Release date:	November 2011

01. Third Act
02. Scarecrow
03. Lead The Way
04. Snake Of Eden
05. Shorthanded
06. Spring Will Come
07. Tree Of Life And Death
08. Fall Of Giants
09. Vampiria
10. Kingship Incarnate [bonus]

Holy hell! Is that you Arch Enemy? No. No, it isn't. Someone call JG Wentworth. I'm pretty sure somebody owes someone else money over this shit.

...That's my review, folks. You might as well stop reading now, as you've read enough to know why not to bother with this.

Oh, what? You've read on? And you're not here because you accidentally clicked the wrong link? Fair enough, I'll continue.

Supposedly, this is a symphonic melodeath album. Er...Yeah, I suppose. Melodeath, definitely. Symphonic? This album is symphonic in the same way Children Of Bodom might be considered death metal; using a loose, poorly worded description, one might consider the categorization apt. The production on this is so wafer-thin there really isn't room for a whole lot once the vocals step up. There are some synths buried somewhere down there, but unless told otherwise (such as you have been), they really wouldn't even come to mind.

But let's not be misunderstood here; Illnath promoting this album as a type of music it's not is not what makes this a piss-poor release, it's the flat-out plagiarism. Hell, if the mixing and production didn't sound as amateurish as it is, I could be easily convinced that is the Angela & Michael duo. Some rabid fanboys who somehow managed to still get their dicks hard over Khaos Legions may be aroused by the sounds of this, but trust me, it isn't even worthy of the "worship by association" crowd. At least Arch Enemy can come up with something that gets caught in your head, good or bad. It's like Michael Amott sold off his reject demo tracks from the Khaos Legions sessions to a bunch of teenagers for a little extra cash...Ok, Third Act... is a little more aggressive than that mild, lazy album, but not in any way that saves it from being a complete waste.

+1 point for still not being quite as bad as Lulu.