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Twisted Into Form - Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer

Wednesday, 28 November 2007

Editor's rating

9.0

out of 10

Reviewed by:
Chad Coup
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Wednesday, 28 November 2007
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Music Information

Track Listing:
01. Enter Nothingness
02. Instinct Solitaire
03. Torrents
04. The Thin Layers Of Lust And Love
05. Tear
06. Manumit
07. The Flutter Kings
08. Erased
09. House Of Nadir
10. Coda

Artist: Twisted Into Form
Title: Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer
Genre: Progressive Metal
Release Date: 01 August 2006
Record Label: Sensory Records
Format: Full-length
Country: Norway
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Twisted Into Form - Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer

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Editor review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful


Overall rating (weighted)		9.0
Musicianship		10.0
Composition		9.0
Experimentation		8.0
Production		9.0
Value		9.0

Within three seconds of listening to this band I thought this: damn, this sounds just like Spiral Architect except slower. This is both good and bad. Spiral Architect happens to be one of my favorite bands ever. Too band they're on a sort of indefinite hiatus. Therefore, a band that takes their sound and makes another record out of it is a good thing. It is also kind of bad that a band doesn't really have an original sound of its own...on the surface.

Upon further research into Twisted, I found out something that made perfect sense: it has two former Spiral members. Kaj Gornitzka, guitarist, and Leif Knashaug, Spiral's demo vocalist. It was recorded in Spiral drummer Asgeir Mickelson's studio, MultiMono. Sensory Records released it, which also put out...you guessed it...Spiral's album.

Now that I had this elevated understanding of Twisted Into Form's music, I started to pick it apart to discover why I shouldn't dismiss it as a Spiral Architect clone. As I mentioned before, Twisted plays at a much slower pace than Spiral. There are fewer notes...but guess what? Who cares? I'm going to go on record and say that Twisted plays more natural, organic and accessible music than its cousin.

My favorite aspect of this band has to be the clean vocals. They do sound a lot like Oyvind's, but there is a bit more range and Leif seems to have a better ear for melody and timing. The first track "Enter Nothingness" has some truly memorable vocal lines. "Torrents" also is my personal favorite track on the album, with the vocals becoming very much their own instrument. He also has a truly beautiful and powerful voice. Is it possible to become a tech vocalist? Leif seems to become that entity.

Every aspect of the production and instrumentation of this band allows their debut record to be accessible because of the pacing and the clarity of the instruments. I can easily hear all the instruments and their notes so clearly. When it comes to a complicated act like this one, heavy layers of distortion and grime aren't going to help get the point across. What Twisted plays is medium-tempo progressive technical metal that has a lot of changes, parts and influences from other music forms. They weave some really complicated drum and bass lines through esoteric guitars and vocals, all the while sounding very clean, melodic and warm. Listen to "Erased" for some real nice acoustic stuff. Folk and jazz influences come into play more than a few times, adding even more layers to this record.

The more I listen to this band, the more I believe that Twisted's approach to tech music is an effective one. This record doesn't try to assault the listener with notes, unlike Spiral's approach. Even though Twisted is a more than adequate starter tech record, some may find extreme replay value simply because of how well everything is composed. To be honest, it took me three spins to fully appreciate this record. This is some of the finest progressive technical metal anyone is likely to come across this side of Spiral Architect. In this music climate, bands like Twisted Into Form should try to not usurp the throne built by Spiral Architect, but to create their own.

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