Tristania barely lights up enough for Illumination

By Greg Manning
Collegian Staff
February 7, 2007

Despite the fact that they are one of the most highly regarded and critically acclaimed gothic metal acts coming from Norway nowadays, my musical love affair with Tristania, which started back in 1999 with their sophomore effort Beyond the Veil, is at an end. Granted, this new album, Illumination, isn’t a bad record. It just sounds a bit lazy and mediocre compared to the band’s mostly brilliant back catalogue.

Things get off to a pretty standard start with opening track “Mercyside,” which highlights the clean male vocals of singer Østen Bergøy, who officially joined the band (after making a guest appearance on 2001’s World of Glass) for 2004’s lackluster Ashes.

Despite a solid performance from Bergøy, female vocalist Vibeke Stene seems to be phoning it in on this track, and on the majority of the album for that matter. Stene unfortunately sticks to the more laidback approach to singing that started on Ashes, doing a complete disservice to the set of pipes she displayed on the band’s first three albums.

Stene’s mellower approach to singing is indicative of the rest of the band’s performance. The guitar riffs of band leader Anders Høyvik Hidle, except for a few instances scattered around the album, take on a much simpler goth rock approach. Additionally, the keyboards and orchestration of Einer Moen completely go to waste playing support to the guitars and never take center stage, as on their past records.

Stene’s vocals, as well as Moen and Hilde’s playing, are tell-tale signs of the band moving in a much more mainstream direction (which started on Ashes). Gone are the lush choir orchestrations and industrial experimentations that made the band original. Tristania seems like they want to be a goth rock band now, rather than a metal band. Unfortunately, they are torn between their past and potential future, which makes for a very frustrating record for long-time fans.

Except for a few scattered words or phrases now and again, the growled vocals, which offered a perfect contrast to the angelic singing of Stene, have disappeared. On top of this, the heavier moments on the album have a decidedly half-assed and uninspired feel, as if Tristania are throwing a bone to fans of their back catalogue and saying “Look, we can still be heavy, don’t abandon us!”

The one exception to this is the song “Sacrilege,” in which the band brings back the orchestrations and relatively fast tempos of their past for an entire four minutes and 15 seconds, with Stene singing like she means it.

Largely, however, it is the softer, more rock-oriented moments on Illumination that are the strongest. Second track and album single “Sanguine Sky,” with its basic verse-chorus structure and the vocal interplay of Bergøy and Stene, offers a very pleasant and catchy experience. “Destination Departure,” with its clean guitar melodies and subtle orchestrations by Moen, offers Stene’s strongest vocal performance since World of Glass. Other highlights include “Fate,” which utilizes Bergøy’s deep baritone to great effect, and album closer “Deadlands.”

On the whole, Illumination is a very mediocre album. It has its instances of brilliance, but gets weighed down by the band’s unwillingness to totally commit to a new direction. The goth rock moments on this album are a lot stronger than the metal moments, and it seems safe to assume that the next entry into the band’s discography will be a full-fledged goth rock record. I can imagine those new to Tristania who are accustomed to more straightforward rock music, and are looking for something with a little bit more of an edge, will find lots to love from the current incarnation of Tristania. Those of us who remember the band’s genre-defining gothic metal days, though, will find it enjoyable, but thoroughly less satisfying.

manningg1@lasalle.edu