It is difficult, if not near impossible, to base an opinion on a
\nband after only hearing a few songs. I realize that part of my job
\nat “The Daily Vault” is to indeed make such opinions on demos that
\nare sent my way, but whether it’s a good or bad review, I often
\nthink I’ve done a band an injustice by passing judgment on 10 or 15
\nminutes’ worth of music.<\/p>\n
I kind of feel that way when I try to talk about Swedish death
\nmetallers Amsvartnet and their four-song EP
\nThe Trollish Mirror<\/i>. On one hand, I hear the same grindcore
\nformula that has catapulted many bands out of obscurity in this
\ngenre; on the other hand, I hear some things which are different to
\nthis style of music. In the end, I’m left wanting to hear more…
\nand maybe that was their plan all along.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist Marcus Johansson, guitarists Jonathan
\nHolmgren and Daniel Nygaard, bassist Albin Johansson and drummer
\nAlfred Johansson – have the formula for this style of metal down
\npat, though they nearly make a critical error to kick off this
\ndisc. The first track, “The Trollish Mirror,” takes far too long to
\nget started; after about 30 seconds, I cranked up the volume just
\nto see if I was missing anything. There it was, faintly heard in
\nthe background – the sound of wind. I honestly thought the CD was
\ndefective, that’s how long the silence continued. Of course, once
\nthe track got started, Amsvartner redeemed themselves with solid
\nmusical performances.<\/p>\n
There is one thing I hear in Amsvartner that doesn’t sound like
\nyour typical grindcore – namely, the occasional presence of a
\nsofter guitar line. Whether this is an acoustic or a regular ol’
\nelectric guitar without 16 tons of distortion I don’t know, but it
\nprovides an interesting “yin-yang” to the traditional
\nballs-to-the-wall approach of the music. Well done!<\/p>\n
For 22 minutes,
\nThe Trollish Mirror<\/i> provides plenty of enjoyment for fans of
\nthis genre. If you care to try and decipher what Marcus Johansson
\nis screaming, the lyrics are included in the liner notes (though he
\nis more clear in his delivery than others in this genre).<\/p>\n
Naturally, only four songs doesn’t really give a great picture
\nof this band and their capabilities, though it does make the
\nlistener want to hear more from them. Somehow, I don’t think that
\nwill be a hard request to fill, as Amsvartner does a brief, but
\nimpressive, job on
\nThe Trollish Mirror<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6449],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36816","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-amsvartner","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36816"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36816"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}