It has been awhile since Tiamat released Prey in 2003. I have missed them in those five years and Prey was certainly not their best work, being a little too far on the mellow side in my opinion. As a whole the band has certainly moved towards a heavier sound on their latest album Amanethes with Johan utilizing some harsher vocals, much more so than the past couple albums at least, but not overdoing it. The rougher vocals definitely add some more character to this disk, although personally I am more of a fan of Johan’s clean voice. I’ll be the first to admit he’s no Peter Steele, but Johan has a great deep, emotional gothic metal voice. The guitar work has also been stepped up; there are a lot of parts that I find are more fast-paced and interesting, but that could just be because it’s stuff that simply has not been heard on a Tiamat album in awhile. The best part is that the music still comes out sounding deep, dark, and melodic. In other words it is Tiamat through and through. Here are a few songs I found particularly of interest:

Lucienne starts out with a pretty standard Tiamat guitar riff and moves into the pretty standard verse with deep vocals from Johan. The chorus is where this song really shines. I found myself wanting to shout LUCIENNE! when this chorus came around; it creates such a great heavy feeling. I also love Katarraktis Apo Aima, the lyrics are great, the melody is great, and even though the song is short and goes by fast, it still creates that vast bleak atmosphere that is right at home on an album like this. Of course this album also has a few slower, more acoustic songs. Misantropolis falls into this category and is another song that is successful at creating a great despair-ridden dark wasteland. The images that went through my head listening to this track were from some kind of dystopic steampunk world. It just works. Meliae is another slower song that starts with some cool, Pink Floyd-ish guitar work. I like the lyrics to this song as well, although the chorus does get a bit repetitive for my liking.

Overall Amanethes is a good album that can sound a bit disjointed at times due to the diversity of the songs. I think this is definitely a step in the right direction for the band though, a sort of balance between the softer Prey and the heavier parts of earlier albums (think Skeleton Skeletron or Clouds). Here’s to hoping they do not wait another five years to release a new album!