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Twelfth Gate - Threshold Of Revelation review
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Reviewer:
6.5

5 users:
6.4
Band: Twelfth Gate
Album: Threshold Of Revelation
Style: Power metal, Progressive metal
Release date: February 07, 2006
A review by: Undercraft


01. Loyal
02. Critical Elements
03. Inner Core
04. Delving Too Deep
05. Human Swine
06. Black Robe
07. Branded
08. Together Divided
09. Face Within A Face
10. Come Alive

No revelation here, move on

The idea seemed cool from the start, and I bet the band members thought that also. Mixing traditional Heavy Metal and Power Metal with Progressive elements and a Thrash Metal feel to the guitars is the way of Twelfth Gate. In paper the idea sound quite appealing, but once you get to hear the record, well, that's another history.

I'm not here to trash the record because I'm not into their music, I'm just to give my two cents in here. First of all, the debut of the band had an artsy, good looking cover art, and this one (sophomore effort) has a uninteresting, bland, plain cover art, what happened here? Really bad choice when picking out the art.

My main problem with the album is the song structures, while many times they're intricate and quite adequate for the overall feel of the album, sometimes they go just a little too "Progressive" for the music, killing the sense of continuity in each song, because the changes are totally out of place and is hard to follow each song.
The vocals are powerful and strong, you could say they go hand in hand with the music, specially with the guitar riffs, which, by the way, are quite heavy.

Definitively the members from Twelfth Gate listen Nevermore and Iced Earth on a regular basis, you can tell that from the get-go, sadly, they don't achieve the same level of musicianship or success of the aftermentioned bands.

Maybe you should try this if you're really into Nevermore, you might like it. Since I don't really like any of their influences, I found this record quite hard to digest, and if you're like me, grab that Pepto-bismol and start listening. I guess there are better albums to listen, but still, this is not as bad as some Power / Progressive Metal acts I've heard lately.

Written by Undercraft | 19.04.2006




Comments

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Comments: 2   Visited by: 16 users
11.03.2011 - 00:08
!J.O.O.E.!
Account deleted
Personally think this is a pretty fine record. There's certainly a bit of Nevermore in it, the vocal department particularly, but even the vocals clearly have a lot of distinction to them and are very sturdy and hold up to the music just as well as Dane does in Nevemore and to be honest if they were in a different style I'm not sure anyone would make the link. As for that killing level of technicality/proggyness, well maybe a little but overall there's reasonably good flow, nice chunky rhythms and generally all-round decent songwriting. Perhaps a couple of dud songs here and there and often led too much by the vocals. I think Nevemore fans would lap this up if they all knew about it as they're far more interesting than Communic, and with a stronger sound too.
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06.06.2011 - 16:32
Rating: 8
R'Vannith
ghedengi
Elite
Written by [user id=4365] on 11.03.2011 at 00:08

Personally think this is a pretty fine record. There's certainly a bit of Nevermore in it, the vocal department particularly, but even the vocals clearly have a lot of distinction to them and are very sturdy and hold up to the music just as well as Dane does in Nevemore and to be honest if they were in a different style I'm not sure anyone would make the link. As for that killing level of technicality/proggyness, well maybe a little but overall there's reasonably good flow, nice chunky rhythms and generally all-round decent songwriting. Perhaps a couple of dud songs here and there and often led too much by the vocals. I think Nevemore fans would lap this up if they all knew about it as they're far more interesting than Communic, and with a stronger sound too.

I agree the review is a bit harsh. Can't say I heard that much of a Nevermore influence when I first listened to it. The vocals occasionally remind me of Warrel Dane but that's only after I read this review. Definitely don't find them better than Communic but there's some great stuff here regardless. 'Human Swine' and 'Black Robe' are the better tracks I think, the album sinks after that.
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