Ascension of the Watchers : "Apocrypha"

This post-industrial side project of Fear Factory vocalist Burton C Bell has always held potential, so lets see if it has finally arrived with this album. The guitars this time around do not just sit back in a laguid Jesu like drone. Still very seperate from Fear Factory or his other projects there still resides a Killing Joke like feel. The melody and dynamics of the song are all dialed in . Bell uses a more tender tone at times rather than his normal baritone croon. I has to listen to the second song a third time for it to sink in. This perhaps means it loses me in it's atmposphere or perhaps doesn't demand my attnetion. It's pleasant enough. I like the guitars. Bell hovers in the background with little in the way of hooks. The drumming to the title track gives it the motion that the previous song needed. The guitar is strummed and Bell has more room to play with the morose melody.

"A Wolf Interlude" doesn't grab me and once again drifts off in the atmosphere , but the album comes back stronger with "Honoree" and " Stormcrow" . The first song balances ambiance and melody. It has more of a Cocteau Twins feel musically. Then the latter works in the samw way post-rock does. Ominious and driven. The dark clouds remain for " Cygnus Aeon".  Brooding , but with a flowing sense of tension. There is a more melodic ballad like tone to "Key to the Cosmos" which gives it an almost Pink Floyd by way of dark wave feel. "Bells of Peridtion" coasts along on atmosphere that seems to float out from the previous song.

The stronger beat and more defined melody of "Wanderers" puts them on more solid footing. "Sign Your Name" is a stummed ballad with a western feel. The more organic nature is welcome in ight of the album's general tone. I will round this down to a 9, not because it's not a solid album, just some of the atmosphere makes it easy for the songs to drift away and get lost into rather than make you beg for more. Still a 9 is outstanding and finds this project really living up to the potential I have know it has all along./