Now I could say Last Episode release, and leave the review at that, but I won't... It starts off with a amazingly generic and boring fag gothic intro bit and then the music starts, fuzzy guitars hiding in the background playing something or other, extremely simplistic keyboard patterns that carry the whole thing, relatively slow blast beating by a drummer who surely isn't to good at it, considering how basic and how uneven he does it. In the slower bits with no keyboards Aeba can come off a bit thrashy, and that actually doesn't do them to bad, but there isn't much of it and usually the keyboard lays on top of it all like a suffocating blanket of rotten feces, but maybe I am being to harsh on them? Every once in a while you can spot a good idea or two, but these do not a good album make, Aeba are quite simply a perfect example of a band that simply got signed way before they were ready. Had they spent a few years working on their music, perhaps giving their drummer a chance to play his instruments a little better, perhaps to work out that in metal the guitar should never be buried in the background by keyboards, to give their vocalist a chance to realize that he can't outdo the vocals on Gorgoroth's "Pentagram*, not even close. But even in this rather pityful attempt at black metal, there is some potential to be spotted beneath the surface, but it shall remain to be seen if they decide to try and grow the potential into real power, I somehow have my doubts, they should never have been signed so quickly...

© 2000 sharund