Antirope – Amnesia
Release Date: 30th June 2023
Label: Eclipse Records
Stream
Genre: Alternative Metal, Post-Metal, Hard Rock, Doom.
FFO: Soundgarden, Neurosis, Black Sabbath.
Review By: Paul Franklin
‘Antirope….. bring us a new sound that makes the psychedelic cruel and the damned sound heavenly’
Founded in Munich, Germany in 2015, Amnesia is the debut album from this alternative metal outfit. The new sound takes the doom-laden groove of their influences (Soundgarden, Neurosis, Black Sabbath) and smears it with layers of dissonant despair and sparse pop melodies.
The opening Is This The End is like waking up in a dark room and realising you are tied to a chair in a serial killer’s basement. The rest of the album then plays out as an audio manifestation of Stockholm Syndrome.
Alongside the doom and gloom, the band also infuse some of the tracks with some 90s grunge. Most prominently on the Bush-esque Dead Sun, and the pleading Give Me More, before Beautiful Liar’s jerky rhythm highlights the band post-rock leanings, as the lyrics highlight the despairing contempt felt for the titular character, proclaiming “I wanna hate you. I don’t wanna love you”.
The standout track is haunting Everything You Are, which starts off sounding like a seductive mix of The Cure and Nine Inch Nails, until halfway through the song is hammered by some fabulously raw and naked guitar riffs.
This is not an album bursting with colour. Not an album you use to impress others. Not an album you share.
This is an album painted in black and white. An album that you keep to yourself. An album that you clutch to your bitter, twisted heart as you shelter in your darkened room, peering scornfully through the curtains at the unbearably bright outside world full of people going about their day-to-day business, selfishly oblivious to your pain and frustration.
Now, what’s good for rope burns?
(4 / 5)
