Enough Already!

Azriel

Hollow

Posts: 2

Location: Canada

1

Wednesday, April 3rd 2002, 9:47pm

I enjoyed Musique, I thought it was a pretty decent deal, but this Assembly album is terrible. :evil:

And with that, heres my review on it.
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the biggest disappointment of 2002.
 
 When I first started listening to TOT, they were still doom metal, some writers even went as far as calling them one of the most influential gothic bands of the 1990s, shaping the sound of other bands, and the genre. Then came Musique which I kinda liked, but if you read issue one, our chris parasyte had some mixed feelings as well. Now their latest release Assembly makes me have to say Okay, enough is enough!!! I haven't seen someone pull something so obviously stupid since Paradise Lost made their little change. Sorry fellas, the only pop I like comes in a bottle.
 
 Assembly is an even more drastic change than before, track one for example, Automatic Lover, utilizes about 4 lines and proceeds to repeat it every chance they get. Liv Kristine is straining to sound cool, and same with male vocalist Raymond, who vocals here and pushing hip hop, and a bad job of it.
 The entire CD's synth work is weak, way too much pressure was placed on these synth lines and guitars, which are formed in such a manner you would swear belt buckles were hitting the floor for a top 40 hit. As far as vocals go, Liv Kristine is nothing of what she used to be and Raymond could never sing to begin with, he growled in the early stuff when they were still doom metal and did a decent job in Aegis, other than that, shut-up! Oh look, Raymond techs his voice up . . . shut up!!
 Another lovely quality they managed to pull off is lack of danceability, since the track lacks oomph I seriously doubt this will be anything more than a floor killer, killer being used in the die die die sense of coarse.
 When I looked at their web site after I heard Assembly I thought to myself Jesus H Christ, these guys must have spent more time on their hair than the bloody album The biggest problem with constantly changing the sound of your music is that it will make you an amateur of your genre, by not allowing yourself to get good at the music you do.
 A neutral way of describing this album is perky and happy, which brings me to the next point, where the hell does the Tragedy in Theatre of Tragedy come in, or the Theatre for that matter. At least they didn't go with their original band name idea Suffering Grief then again, it would probably suit this album.
 The album is filled with songs you will hate to begin with and only like after hearing a hundred times, perfect for the radio!
 In this writers humble opinion, this is the end of Theatre of Tragedy, and I guess in some ways this album is tragic, in the sense that they used to be one of my favorite bands before they pulled the commercial sound route. This really pissed me off, that's my reaction in a nutshell.

Comatose Rose Magazine
 Driving Rivets Into The Subdued

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Lost

Transition

Posts: 100

Location: Bulgaria

2

Wednesday, April 3rd 2002, 10:32pm

O.K. guys, I heard the whole thing yesterday... It's not my music anymore... I don't see why I should try and convince myself there's some soul left in Theatre of Tragedy... There's no such thing anymore... Don't have patience enough to explain how much I like the direction bands like Paradise Lost went in and that I like change when it preserves the soul of music... ToT lost everything that made them special... They just conformed... I don't believe anymore they're just trying out new stuff...
 I'd have left this board if I didn't like talking to you... but it should be clear that I'm not staying because of ToT... Most of you'd say this is immature but: ToT suck.

"... no arrival"

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Zack

Frozen

Posts: 477

Location: Brooklyn, NY

3

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 2:57am

Screw conformity, Lost. At least you're not out to make the rest of the board dwell in it with you. Like what you want.

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sinthetik

Frozen

Posts: 303

Location: USA (Maryland)

4

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 6:48am

I just have to laugh about this.....*giggle*

****************************************
 
 die...just die......

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I'm hungry...

Revolution

Posts: 1,545

Location: Greece/Athens

Occupation: Large-scale Marijuana Smuggler

5

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 8:09am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I'd have left this board if I didn't like talking to you... but it should be clear that I'm not staying because of ToT... Most of you'd say this is immature but: ToT suck.</td></tr></table>
 ...this board rules... that's true... i can't say i'm totally staying here because of tot too, but i should state that i want to listen to their next release... dunno why, but i'm sort of sure that it would be alot better than assembly and musique together (without having to be of a metal genre)...
 
 ...old tot are maybe dead, but i think that they didn't have enough time to start 'stinking' already...

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Acey83

Hollow

Posts: 35

Location: Auckland, New Zealand

6

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 8:31am

Perhaps I'm not as wrapped up in my own Gothness as you lot, but I disagree entirely with you. I will admit to being a new fan of Theatre of Tragedy. In fact, the Assembly promo (in MP3 format) was the first I had ever heard of them. Straight away I wondered who these guys *were* (we don't get decent music here in New Zealand) and where I could find more of their music, because it was damn catchy stuff. So I came to this website. To my complete surprise, they had started off as a Gothic metal band in Norway, and had been hugely successful in the genre up to the turn of the millennium, when they changed their style to industrial.
 
 I had mixed emotions of how they defined "Gothic metal" in their sound, since the supposedly Gothic acts we have here are nothing but whitenoise and Satanic schtick. But I thought I may as well have a look, and went and downloaded Aegis. I was not only thoroughly impressed, but almost spellbound. This album was brilliant, and the immediate thought that came to my head after finishing listening to it was "How could they possibly change their style to the worthless stuff they're writing now, when they were so amazing at what they did before?"
 
 Then I snapped back into reality and realised the hypocrisy of that thought. I had gotten into them initially because of that "worthless stuff", and I had really enjoyed all of it. Since then Aegis has firmly placed itself as one of my top 5 albums ever, but Assembly has silently grown on me and is still a great listen every time. My point is that if you want to be all Goffick and cynical and uphold your "hard" image, Assembly probably isn't going to be your album. But you can't tell me it's crap, because it's actually still great stuff, despite the fact that they used to be "the greatest Goth band in the world" in many peoples' eyes. Your tastes may be different, but having a closed mindset isn't going to help things.

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Master of Tragedy

Admin

Posts: 1,322

Location: Germany

7

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 9:19am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 And with that, heres my review on it.
 </td></tr></table>
 Seems you're pretty pissed off or has something else happened to you?
 I mean apart from the fact that this isn't much of a review, there's so much hate and anger between the lines that you might be better of with making some black metal instead of writing reviews...

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cybercrash

Hollow

Posts: 11

8

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 9:22am

I don't get how you can like Musique and dislike Assembly. I think Assembly takes the elements of Musique, improves them and adds some interesting experiments. Is it poppy? Hell yes. Is it typical mainstream pop material? Nope, it's way too good for that, if it got a big push from a big record company it could get there though.
 I don't think your post is very convincing either, it just shows that you don't like pop music ("the only pop I like comes in a bottle"), well good for you. There's nothing wrong with disliking pop music but if you really don't like pop then why would you listen to it and afterwards complain about how bad you think it is? There are millions of people like you who don't like this sort of music, we've seen this point of view before and so I don't see the point in making the kazillionth post about 'you know what, I think this music sucks!'. I mean come on, am I the only who thinks we've had enough of this?

abstract thought visualised
 -> <a href='http://www.cybercrash.be' target='_blank'>http://www.cybercrash.be</a>

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~~~Spectral Eve~~~

Revolution

Posts: 792

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.

9

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 10:54am

wow.......and just when I thought the whining had ceased! :x

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Fox Mulder

Revolution

Posts: 575

Location: Italy

Occupation: Research and Development Manager

10

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 10:58am

I agree with cybercrash.
 It's almost impossible for me to think of Musique being a better album then Assembly. Being sure that now we are talking about electro-music, the samples used in Musique didn't fit perfectly to the normal instruments: they seemed to me as a "vulgar display of electro-power", nothing more. With Assembly things are a lot more balanced, even if the samples are coolest than ever! The more I listen to it, the more I disagree with my own previous post about the artistical value of the opus: I think it's somehow artistic and difficult being carried from Ramstein to Nine Inch Nails, from Britney Spears to Bjork, but ToT managed to do that, adding their own style. I think that if Sony or EMI was written in the back of the album instead of Nuclear Blast, ToT would have sold more copies than Garbage and bands like this...
 Byez, Fox

Si può ancora sperare.

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~~~Spectral Eve~~~

Revolution

Posts: 792

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.

11

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 11:03am

Opinions are like assholes........everyone has one. <img src='http://www.theatreoftragedy.com/board/html/emoticons/tongue.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tongue.gif'>

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Lost

Transition

Posts: 100

Location: Bulgaria

12

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 12:53pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 Screw conformity, Lost. At least you're not out to make the rest of the board dwell in it with you. Like what you want.
 </td></tr></table>
 
 :?:

What do I want?

"... no arrival"

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Lost

Transition

Posts: 100

Location: Bulgaria

13

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 1:13pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 Perhaps I'm not as wrapped up in my own Gothness as you lot...
 </td></tr></table>
 
 Oh guys... I'm losing all hope you'll ever understand what I mean...
 I'm not goth anymore, I realized how senseless goth is an year and a half ago. I do not want ToT to be goth. I do not want them to do the same thing all over again like Lacrimosa do. I just want their music to have soul. Tell me please what soul do you find in Assembly???
 
 O.K., I have to change my attitude towards ToT. They're not my band, they're just a band and O.K., they do not have to write music for me. I was just trying to tell you all that I think music has to come from the heart and be able to enter others' hearts or at least minds.
 Like what Paradise Lost and Ulver and EverEve still manage to do even though they changed their style.

"... no arrival"

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Belua

Hollow

Posts: 23

Location: Sweden

14

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 2:00pm

The only reason tho why I'm actually listening to anything that came after Aégis is that I want to recognize what I will probably hear the morepart of the concert in Malmö.
 I just can't understand how anyone could waste such a wonderful voice as Liv Kristine's, on that kind of synthetical disasters.

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Raymond

band member

Posts: 246

Location: Straight outta RBG

15

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 2:57pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 Opinions are like assholes........everyone has one. <img src='http://www.theatreoftragedy.com/board/html/emoticons/tongue.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tongue.gif'>
 </td></tr></table>
 
 How about those that have had rectal cancer? Do they still have one? :?

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TheUnborn

Hollow

Posts: 24

Location: Norway

16

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 6:11pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 O.K. guys, I heard the whole thing yesterday... It's not my music anymore... I don't see why I should try and convince myself there's some soul left in Theatre of Tragedy... There's no such thing anymore... Don't have patience enough to explain how much I like the direction bands like Paradise Lost went in and that I like change when it preserves the soul of music... ToT lost everything that made them special... They just conformed... I don't believe anymore they're just trying out new stuff... I'd have left this board if I didn't like talking to you... but it should be clear that I'm not staying because of ToT... Most of you'd say this is immature but: ToT suck.
 </td></tr></table>
 
 What is immature, is to judge an album after one listen through
 the whole thing, like you did yesterday.
 In my opinion, quality music is music you have to listen to alot and
 then discover what kind of a jewel it is, like for example Emperor,
 dont know if anyone listens to that band, but their albums need to
 grow on you, it`s hard to really get alot out of their albums at first
 listen. Just like you didnt get anything out of the first whole listen
 to the new Theatre of Tragedy album.
 LET MUSIC GROW ON YOU, or arent you experienced enough
 to have realized that by now?
 
 **TheUnborn**
 np : Death - Symbolic

I`ve been dying for so long I´m beginning to think I can´t die....
 <a href='http://www.geocities.com/forsilent/main.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.geocities.com/forsilent/main.htm</a>

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Caine Beolve

Revolution

Posts: 797

Location: Washington, US

17

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 6:34pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>ToT lost everything that made them special... They just conformed... I don't believe anymore they're just trying out new stuff... I'd have left this board if I didn't like talking to you... but it should be clear that I'm not staying because of ToT...</td></tr></table>
 
 agreed Lost
 
 I love the board, Ive been posting here and there for over 2 years. I actually agree with the first post, though Im not quite as angry. I've heard good pop music, but I'm sorry you cant go from gothic doom type metal to pop music and just expect to be awesome, it just doesnt happen. You have to maintain a semblance of what your good at to grow as a band, change happens over time, not over night.

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black_rose

Frozen

Posts: 479

Location: Norway

18

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 6:39pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 I'd have left this board if I didn't like talking to you... but it should be clear that I'm not staying because of ToT...</td></tr></table>
 
 That's sad!! That's really sad! We're here because we like ToT, and basically, we're here to talk about them... There are plenty of other boards on the net where they don't utter a word about ToT, why not try them out, and you don't have to stay here listening to our ToT-talk, and we don't have to hear you whining about our ToT-talk..

Lyss
***^***^***^***
I poke badgers with spoons

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Lost

Transition

Posts: 100

Location: Bulgaria

19

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 10:11pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 LET MUSIC GROW ON YOU, or arent you experienced enough
 to have realized that by now?
 </td></tr></table>
 
 I did like Emperor at the first listen. What I did not like immediately was Borknagar for example...
 Yes, when music grows on you you love it more and more, but I know from the very first time I listen to it whether or not I need time, i.e. whether or not there is any chance I would like it...
 I want music to teach me stg., to show me stg. new or at least valuable, not stg. that even my dumb neighbors could tell me...

"... no arrival"

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Lost

Transition

Posts: 100

Location: Bulgaria

20

Thursday, April 4th 2002, 10:35pm

Seems like either I saw I don't love what I used to love and this made me too disappointed and therefore angry...
 ... or you couldn't understand what I meant...
 
 It also seems the people I really liked talking to are gone (especially Villain and PAZ.)
 I don't want anything to sound dramatic, but I'm leaving for a while. I'll follow Black_Rose's advice and you and I won't fight. I might be back when things get different.
 To those of you who I really like and respect a lot - Master, Ambrosius, Marinere - hope to see you again.

"... no arrival"

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