Lista de Bandas Black Death Paimonia Disease Named Humanity

Serbian black metal project Paimonia formed in 2011 in Novi Sad, headed by multi-musician Bojan Vukoman. After releasing their first EP "Modern Way of Distraction" the following year, the band went on to unleash their debut full-length in 2013 entitled "Disease Named Humanity."

The musicianship this record demonstrates is quite impressive. Everything from the resonant vocals to the wicked guitar play to the complex drumming teems with potency and expertise. On top of being well-performed, however, the musicianship is also well-utilized. The songs are structured in a way that provides a lot of dynamic and musical talent while remaining concise. In terms of instrumentation and substance, "Disease Named Humanity" manages to succeed on both accounts.

Nikola Pacek-Vetnic, the band's drummer, also did the mixing and engineering for this album. His sound production gives the music a lot of haunting ambiance to make its dark impact even stronger. Simultaneously, though, the mixing balances out perfectly because the profuse amount of atmosphere doesn't compromise the crispness of the vocals and instruments. The mixing is easily one of the "Disease Named Humanity's" most advantageous aspects.

This album's other best element, however, would have to be the its third song "Ruined Form Catharsis," as it demonstrates everything that this release accomplishes to its fullest. It makes a broodingly subtle entrance with some atmospherically depressive guitar plucking, but soon afterwards explodes into a black metal vortex. Its potent levels of dynamic and masterful usage of musicianship definitely make this particular song the best in the record's business.

While there isn't quite enough to this release to render it a masterpiece, "Disease Named Humanity" is still a very well-crafted black metal specimen. It has a lot of atmosphere and great musicianship on top of some very engaging song-writing as well. Black metal fans are firmly recommended to this record, and outsiders of black metal might find something to enjoy as well. Judging from this album, Paimonia is well on their way to creating something else even more diabolical.


Originally posted on: http://metaljerky.blogspot.com/

Well, I don't usually like covering material that has already been reviewed here and elsewhere; I prefer to devote my reviews to metal bands who have been unjustly forgotten or ignored. But considering that a member of this band requested an album review, I guess I can make an exception.

My first impression of Paimonia was that they were mixing the chaotic dissonance of French black metal with the majestic and somber melodic sense of classic Scandinavian black metal. It's a fairly interesting and, perhaps, relevant combination, considering the current popularity of highly unorthodox acts such as Deathspell Omega in the underground. While I don't think the contrast between dissonance and melody has been so compellingly executed on this album--I think this is a matter of compositional mastery, which will probably improve as these comparatively young musicians continue--time will prove whether Paimonia is an exceptional purveyor of extreme metal.

Instead of listing the positive aspects of this album first, I am going to address the only particular aspect I fully disliked since it's so notable. While I was immediately drawn into the whirling chaos of the opening "As Plague Scourge this World Apart" [sic], the vocals just as quickly drew me out of the song. Amidst so much powerful dissonance, a lisping, throaty voice feebly emerged. At first, they sounded like vocals belonging to some trendy "core" act. But the more I listened, a familiar vocalist came to mind: Ihsahn. While being a brilliant composer, all-around excellent musician and a decent "clean" vocalist, Ihsahn was never close, in terms of range and pure fury, to being the best vocalist of black metal. And while Emperor's albums often kept his vocals layered well beneath the instruments, Paimonia features these awkwardly strained vocals all throughout the album. To be fair, I've read other reviews that stated no complaint about the vocals. However, I think Paimonia could certainly be no worse--in my eyes, far better--if they were to find a member who focused purely upon vocals. The most damning qualities of the vocal performance is the lack of range and forced aggression, the latter being something which should never be found on any metal album.

With this matter out of the way, I must state that the guitar work on this album is of fairly high quality. Sure, in the course of the album, the structure of the riffs becomes predictable. Even though the current overstated dissonance in so much contemporary metal may be considered a bad trend, the dissonance on this album is at least initially effective; by the end of the album, it feels rather redundant. But that's where the melodic element, greatly reminiscent of Scandinavian acts such as Dissection and, more recently, Naglfar, comes in to create at least a minor level of contrast. Take "Ruined Form Catharsis" in which somber acoustic guitar contrast with blazing, aggressive riffage. Paimonia also shows a slight leaning toward the unorthodox side of extreme metal by the inclusion of a violin motif on "Depth within Nothingness Called Life." It's by no means the full blown, orchestral drama found in contemporary Dimmu Borgir, but it's a nice touch of dark elegance that doesn't come off as ostentatious.

With the exception of the tracks I've mentioned, everything else simply blurred together due to the overuse of dissonance and the need for more pronounced melodies. To have these contrasting elements is not enough. The band must learn how to arrange the dissonant and melodic passages in a more effective way to bring about a truly powerful listening experience. And by the way, Paimonia is simply not yet mature enough on a compositional level to justify an eight-minute track (see "Funeral of Decaying World"). This repetitiveness, along with the sub-par vocals, actually made me enjoy the album less than I expected.

Paimonia is certainly aware of its love for both dissonance and melody, and herein lies the key to producing a more compelling sense of tonal dynamism on their next album. The power of a band such as Deathspell Omega is that, one moment, they can evoke dread with ominously surging rhythms and then leave the listener crestfallen with the depressive melody of a rippling arpeggio. As of now, Paimonia simply has not achieve an effective contrast of dissonance and melody to be anything more than merely somewhat above the average extreme metal band. However, "Disease Named Humanity" might be worth checking out for those who are interested to follow the evolution of a fairly young band with a decent amount of potential for growth.