Arsis / A Celebration of Guilt
Album: A Celebration of Guilt   Collection:General
Artist:Arsis   Added:Aug 2004
Label:Willowtip  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2004-09-27 Pull Date: 2004-11-29 Charts: Loud
Week Ending: Nov 28 Nov 21 Nov 14 Nov 7 Oct 31 Oct 24 Oct 17 Oct 10
Airplays: 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2

Recent Airplay
1. Apr 28, 2005: One Fraction of Time
Maddening Disdain
4. Nov 11, 2004: Popular Enough To Be Different
Carnal Ways to Recreate the
2. Nov 25, 2004: The Person Who Stole My Bike Will Die a Horribly Painful Death
Looking to Nothing
5. Nov 04, 2004: Popular Enough To Be Different
Looking to Nothing
3. Nov 18, 2004: Popular Enough To Be Different
Maddening Disdain
6. Oct 28, 2004: Popular Enough To Be Different
Elegant and Perverse

Album Review
Ragnar of Ravensfjord
Reviewed 2004-10-17
I can’t seem to make heads or tails of this. This band is somewhere around black metal (in the vocals mostly), melodic death metal and straight-ahead death metal.
While that combo can produce some good results this seems to be a lot more on the “loose parts” side than “finished product”. The so-so production job doesn’t help either nor does the spotty drum work. The main problem is this gets boring pretty fast. Overall, nothing terribly original but it gets some points for having a few good riffs.
1) Pretty bland melodic black/death metal. Somethng like a recent Arch Enemy demo. Really bad tinny drum playing (the cymbals sound like shit) and the noodling guitars just rarely do anything interesting. Annoying pinch harmonics, too! Ugh!
((2)) More of that comtemporary thrash sound which is somewhere around Arch Enemy, The Haunted mixed more “sprinkler system” drumming in the mix but some of the drum parts are OK. The riff is great & the noodling is great, too but the vocals are kind of buried.
(((3))) Starts off like a mix of power & thrash metal then goes into this blackened thrash thing with a some melodic march sections. Kill that pinch harmonic crap and bring up the vocals & they’ll have a winner.
((4)) Weird Judas Priest or “Iced Earth on speed” tones then straight-ahead thrashin’ blackened vibe. That “hornet swarm” vibe on this is hella annoying. Find a few more riffs, dudes!
(((5))) Crunch-tone laden thrash tempo ‘ala Kreator but then gets more into this Witchery-like sound but with muddy production. The breakdowns are pretty good, though.
((6)) More 80’s thrash vibe but they’re fuckin it up with too many squeallys (or pinch harmonics). Sounds somewhere around Mithotyn mixed with Witchery or Satanic Slaugther. Zzz...
(((7))) Starts off with this raspy black metal voice then proceeds in this strange pattern of riffs which then transform into more death/black/thrash mixing and most of it’s good.
(((8))) Really intense riffing! Mostly solid structure. Definitely the best song on this album. (Though still not something I’d consider unfuckingbelievablely great).
((9)) Typical shitty thrash/death wankathon that too many bands have already tramppled on. Sounds like at least 5 Swedish bands if not more.
(((10))) Lamb of God-like gallop then an odd mix of a slow riffing guitar with a fast thrashin’ one. This one works pretty well. Sounds most like a twist between Dissection and At The Gates (but this vocalist could never match Tompa Lindberg)
((11)) Almost a higher rating if it weren’t for a case of the guitar “squealies”. Then again, this is waaay too mixed up to sound like a cohesive song. Too much wankery.

Track Listing
1. The Face of My Innocence   6. Carnal Ways to Recreate the
2. Maddening Disdain   7. Dust and Guilt
3. Seven Whispeers Fell Silent   8. Elegant and Perverse
4. Return   9. The Sadistic Motives Behind
5. Worship Depraved   10. Looking to Nothing
  11. Wholly Night