Atrium Carceri & Eldar - Sacrosanct

Okay, well, I really don't have much good or bad to say about this release, which is Atrium Carceri's (a Swedish dark ambient project) and Eldar's (a Spanish industrial group) love child, resulting in a dark ambient release which is, well, less than stellar. However, that's not to say that it's not the most horrific piece of shit I have ever seen, either. It's just somewhere right splat in the middle of good and bad.

I guess my main problem with the album is that it just does not have the wow-factor that I always look for in an album. The songs within this release are okay; it's dark ambient, for sure, and I can very much tell you that you can probably sit back and relax with each of these songs. But, you can only relax so much with them before, even in a tired state, you start to realize just how okay it is. And okay, although it may just be okay, is still just okay.

It's like getting a back massage, and you have some complete stranger doing it. They rub your back, but they don't know where you like to be touched, or how firm, and therefore the massage is just rendered as being okay. However, comes along a special someone, a wife, a husband, a boyfriend or girlfriend, and they go to town with that massage, and it becomes more than okay. It becomes fucking delicious. That's what I'm trying to get at, I suppose. That the album is just okay, not great. I figured a real life example would help explain my thoughts.

Now, you have to take the good with the bad, though. For example, the song "Sol" starts off just okay. And it just seems to be toying around for a good portion of the song. And then, out of nowhere in the final minute and a half, comes along this glorious piano work combined with light atmospheric music and it turns into something inspiring. However, that still just leaves a good chunk of the song being pretty boring, and only in the final minute or so does it turn around.

And I suppose that "Sol" can work as a metaphor for the rest of the album. You have a good chunk of it making me think and say, "I've heard better," and then just a fraction of the album having me say, "Yea, that was good." Therefore, I can't really give it too much negative bites, nor can I praise it as my Lord and savior, so, it will go down as just being an "okay" album. May 13 2013