Pictured - The Strand Of Time
When I think about France, I think of croissants, touchy feely men with wicked mustaches and wine. France is the country of romance, food and the Eiffel Tower. What's metal about any of that? Well, the Eiffel Tower is, but that's about it. I looked up French heavy metal bands and there are actually 269 of them! Holy ooh-la-la.
Pictured, which is a poor choice for a band name, formed in 2007. I'm not sure why such an obscure name, but like all bands, they have their reasons. Go ahead and Google Pictured and see if you get anything at all related to heavy metal. You won't. You'll get a bunch of sites about rocks and a Scorpions song. I stopped looking after the fourth page. Yeah, I don't get the rocks thing either.
Pictured kicked my ass from the first to the last note.The album, err, CD, starts off with a catchy riff and then explodes into this multilayer, complex of instruments that is entertaining to say the least. The vocals teeter on over-the-top, big cat growls (think Arch Enemy) but it all melds together. 'Another' is a great first track. Great first tracks make me nervous. How many albums/cassettes/CDs have you ever listened to when the first track was so awesome the rest of the recording was reminiscent of monkey butt? Exactly.
But Track 2 (Black Bile) is as intense as the first track. Instead of calming down, my body grew with anticipation.
My favorite on this work of art is 'The Dwelling.' The beginning is a fierce instrumental that builds up and explodes into a crazy smorgasbord of melodies and harmonies. The beginning of this song is beautiful.
If 'Howling Forest' were a physical entity, it would have absolutely punched me in the face. This song also starts out with wicked instrumental. The melody of piano and keyboard on the backdrop of a low hum is goosebumps worthy.
From front to back this CD was in my face. I look forward to more from this phenomenal band in the future.
Pictured, which is a poor choice for a band name, formed in 2007. I'm not sure why such an obscure name, but like all bands, they have their reasons. Go ahead and Google Pictured and see if you get anything at all related to heavy metal. You won't. You'll get a bunch of sites about rocks and a Scorpions song. I stopped looking after the fourth page. Yeah, I don't get the rocks thing either.
Pictured kicked my ass from the first to the last note.The album, err, CD, starts off with a catchy riff and then explodes into this multilayer, complex of instruments that is entertaining to say the least. The vocals teeter on over-the-top, big cat growls (think Arch Enemy) but it all melds together. 'Another' is a great first track. Great first tracks make me nervous. How many albums/cassettes/CDs have you ever listened to when the first track was so awesome the rest of the recording was reminiscent of monkey butt? Exactly.
But Track 2 (Black Bile) is as intense as the first track. Instead of calming down, my body grew with anticipation.
My favorite on this work of art is 'The Dwelling.' The beginning is a fierce instrumental that builds up and explodes into a crazy smorgasbord of melodies and harmonies. The beginning of this song is beautiful.
If 'Howling Forest' were a physical entity, it would have absolutely punched me in the face. This song also starts out with wicked instrumental. The melody of piano and keyboard on the backdrop of a low hum is goosebumps worthy.
From front to back this CD was in my face. I look forward to more from this phenomenal band in the future.
- Another
- Black Bile
- Curses
- The Dwelling
- Howling Forest
- Metal
- The Strand Of Time
- Stranger
- To Hell And Back
