Anubis
Gate – Purification
By Zane Ewton
Purification is the debut release
from the Denmark metal band, Anubis Gate. The band is steeped in
the imagery and musical tones of power metal. With their debut, the
band attempts to update the style of power metal with a smooth and clean
production value.
The band members found each other in Aalborg,
which has come to be known as the heavy metal capital of Denmark, after
spending years in other progressive metal bands.
Purification was designed as somewhat
of a concept album about fighting inner demons and purifying yourself on
a psychological level. The band took its name from Anubis, the jackal-God
of ancient Egyptian mythology who led dead souls through the underworld
and into the kingdom of Osiris.
With that much back-story, it is safe to
assume that Purification is an epic album, full of grand gestures
and keyboard interludes.
The musicianship within the band is very
good. It takes good musicians to create something with the kind of
pomp and circumstance these songs require, and guitarists Jesper M. Jensen
and Kim Olesen are up to the task. The guitar work is the cornerstone
of Purification. The sections without guitar tend to drag,
bringing the song down as a whole.
The weakest aspects of this album are in
the vocals and the production. The production is so clean that the
songs lose bite and become glossy. Torben Askholm is a competent
vocalist but lacks a style of his own or the bombast to lift the songs
to a higher plateau.
“Hall of Two Truths” suffers through and
extended intro and fails to pick up any momentum. “Downward Spiral”
and “Purification” also languish in a mid-tempo beat. “In the comfort
of Darkness” finally speeds things up a bit, but the rest of the album
levels off. The 10 tracks on Purification could be one song
as there is not much variation and each song becomes an exercise in adding
interludes and variances that detract from the songs.
Purification is a decent, musician
driven album, but lacks energy and excitement. If this was 1982, Anubis
Gate would be opening for Dio, but Dio would blow them away.
CD Info
Anubis
Gate – Purification
Label: Locomotive
Music
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