{"id":17952,"date":"2014-02-11T00:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T00:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=17952"},"modified":"2014-03-10T22:50:49","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T22:50:49","slug":"album-review-ad-infinitum-woven-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-ad-infinitum-woven-within\/","title":{"rendered":"AD INFINITUM – Woven Within (2014) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

AD INFINITUM
Woven Within<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSelf-released (2014)<\/span>
Rating: 5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Considering that there are a number of bands adopting this moniker, Ad Infinitum \u2013 who hail from Kentucky in the United States \u2013 are not the most original. Ad Infinitum is the work of one person \u2013 the mysterious J.G.S. \u2013 and like so many other atmospheric black metal bands, opts for vast landscapes of sound and remote vocals, which are hidden beneath the wall of sound. <\/p>\n

However, while many bands of this ilk do tend to become rather rainy and at times a tad tepid, there is a touch more oomph with the expression of J.G.S. He chooses to add a weightier guitar and drum sound, the result being a more hellish atmosphere and something meatier to get the teeth into. <\/p>\n

Vocally, the squawks and rasps are too indistinctive in the mix to have any real effect; in fact, they act as mere gassy exhalations rather than actual vocals. Anyway though, with the exception of the relatively short instrumental \u2018Aestuum\u2019, the album boasts seven reasonably lengthy songs.<\/p>\n

Woven Within<\/em> opens with the lumbering \u2018Heliacal Rising\u2019, which is half-decent as far as the guitars and drums go, although the track \u2013 which clocks in at over eight minutes \u2013 does begin to bore halfway in when we realise that there\u2019s going to be very little variation from the plod. <\/p>\n

\u2018Inward Threshold\u2019 also runs for close to nine minutes, but this is more standard icy black metal fare with the raging guitars and speedy drums. However, the vocals seem utterly pointless, as they kind of hover in the distance without any real effect on the ears. Soon lumbering back to a steady, hypnotic pace, the track again lacks variation between the two styles until an injection of cosmic vapour seems to glide into the room. From here on, the track takes on an intriguing twist of imposing rumbles and stormy hiss before resorting back to type.<\/p>\n

The 12-minute \u2018Ethereal\u2019 is once again abrasive black metal remoteness with gothic orchestration running through its grey veins, and \u2018Observer\u2019 tends to numb the brain as a rather laborious wheeze. I\u2019m all for these types of artists and their grey expression, but believe me, if you\u2019re going to make an album of lengthy songs, you need to engross the listener with varying content rather than bore them to death. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure many bands of this ilk think they are creating wondrous soundscapes to reflect the contents of their mind, but as each track reveals itself there\u2019s not a whole lot going on between those detached vocal gasps and continuous motions of emotionless guitars, and blank percussion. <\/p>\n

There does come a hint of relief with the shorter six-minute title track \u2013 a racy blast of chilly chords and rapid drums \u2013 but by this point I\u2019m finding it hard to separate the tracks from one another and finding myself almost comatose before 12-minute closer \u2018Surfacing\u2019 slaps me round the face with a frostbitten hand in order to revive me from the tundra effects. J.G.S. opts for a simple galactic sweep with the track, which is simply presented as some type of cosmic groan and drone, and features a spoken word sample to add to the extraterrestrial nuance. <\/p>\n

And then it\u2019s over, another rather tiresome expression from the black metal fringes. Woven Within<\/em> is an alien concept which may have sounded good within the head of J.G.S., but suffers badly when put to tape. Hardly a visit to the outer limits, and more a case of rather limited.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AD INFINITUMWoven Within Self-released (2014)Rating: 5\/10 Considering that there are a number of bands adopting this moniker, Ad Infinitum \u2013 who hail from Kentucky in the United States \u2013 are not the most original. Ad Infinitum is the work of one person \u2013 the mysterious J.G.S. \u2013 and like so many other atmospheric black metal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1121,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ad-infinitum","category-album-ep-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17952"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17954,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17952\/revisions\/17954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}