Tremor

A Storm Is Brewing

(c)(p)1997 Tremor

Review by Vladimir Levin

Thanks to the band for the CD

This CD introduces us to a young band from the Netherlands. Having released 3 demo tapes since 1994, Tremor has now decided to produce a full-fledged album. Including a female vocalist, the band consists of 6 members. The introductory track on this CD, a drum solo entitled "Cadentz", is quite unexpected in the midst of the ubiquitous acoustic guitar solos prefacing many doom-style albums in recent memory; it seems to make a bit of a statement: the listener should prepare for something original.

The album evolves into an eclectic mixture of rhythms and melodies making up 8 tracks in total, and spanning 38 minutes. Some of the songs combine overlaid male and female vocal tracks with acoustic guitar, drum, and synth accompaniment, developing a dreamlike, relaxed atmosphere. Other tracks bring a gloomier, harder dimension to the music with slow tuned-down guitars, and forlorn vocals in the vein of My Dying Bride or perhaps even Type O Negative. Still other songs bring to the foreground agile, intricate guitar riffs reminiscent of NWOBHM bands like Iron Maiden. The vocals range from gothic spoken-word, to a fairly harsh doom / death style and include stereotypical angelic female singing. Throaty spoken-word vocals and occasional high-pitched choruses in the background (which reminded me very much of Mercyful Fate) in addition to a piano and organ accompaniment lend a gothic / celtic element to the music. The overall stylistic sense that I perceive in "A Storm is Brewing" is that this album adroitly brings together metal, celtic, doom, death and a kind of 70's influence that is sometimes pastoral and sometimes a bit new wave.

I found that I enjoyed this album much more the second time I played it, on my stereo, than the first, when I listened to it with headphones on. Perhaps this is indicative of a somewhat weak production since such weaknesses tend to be brought out by headphones. It's also the kind of album that tends to get better as one listens to it more. Overall, in spite of some production issues, I would say this album is enjoyable to listen to and portends a bright future for these talented folks. In case any record labels are listening, I think this band deserves some attention; they've got talent and originality, but they could use some money to get better production (which is all-important for this kind of sound) and perhaps a little more direction and structure as well.

Back to Index