(Metal Age) Total Time: 44:08
Less than two years have passed since GALADRIEL’s previous (fourth) album “From Ashes & Dust”. Yet, it seems there was enough time for many significant changes to take place in this Slovakian band. The line-up has changed drastically with three out of six members having left the band. This, in turn, had significant effects in the band’s sound and direction. The slow atmospheric death metal they used to play has been substituted by a new sound that the press release defines as “modern melodic dark doom metal” but a much more precise description would be “electronic, death, black, gothic metal salad”. In other words bollocks! GALADRIEL really fucked up big time with “World Under World”. It seems they tried to create a personal sound and they thought they could achieve that by randomly mixing together as much different styles as possible. And, not surprisingly, they were wrong! The result is a total catastrophe, a misfortunate mess. The band sounds disoriented, confused, out of focus, and ultimately disturbingly boring. The programming and electronic sounds do not fit to the melodic parts and the atmosphere of the songs, the continuous alternation of growling male, soprano female, melodic male and operatic vocals (how come they didn’t also used a children’s choir on top of the previous?) is very annoying and, finally, the few interesting melodies are ruined by the uninspired arrangements. The only thing that gets saved in this fiasco is the decent production. It’s a pity really as it looks like the band put a lot of effort in this album.
Only for relatives of the band members.
