Last Updated on Thursday, 24 December 2009 10:56
Written by Robert Eaton
Artist: The Awakening
CD Title: Tales of Absolution and Obsoletion (2009)
Reviewer: Robert Eaton
Date: 12/06/09
The Awakening, though based in the US since this previous year, hails from Johannesburg, South Africa, and is the premier goth rock act to come out of South Africa. Singer/songwriter/producer Ashton Nyte has been the driving force behind The Awakening, which formed in 1995, and has released 8 full-length albums. “Tales of Absolution and Obsoletion” is the follow-up to 2006’s “Razor Burn.” The Awakening has toured extensively through the US with Spirit Child, Leper, and London After Midnight.
For fans of goth rock, this is about as good as it gets without a time-machine back to the Cleopatra era. “Tales of Absolution” is a well-produced, contemporary goth-rock album, always carried by Nyte’s intense and brooding vocals. “Ivory (part 1 & 2)” at 6:20, is somewhat long, but creates a perfect and ethereal back-drop for Nyte to showcase his melodic range. The morose lament, “Frozen” is eerie and spare, everything the name would suggest. “Where the Shadow Goes” picks up the pace, but the momentum fades in the chorus. The better part of the album continues in much the same plodding, atmospheric vein. Probably the most striking song is “Prayer for the Song” which is jangly, dramatic and even operatic at times.
In spite of the fact Nyte has a hell of a set of pipes, I can’t think of a lot of reason to rush out to get this album rather than just dig back in my CD collection for some old goth favorites. Still it’s a superb-sounding album with well-crafted songs. Despite “The Awakening’s long career, the album fails, for me, because it fails to sound too different from the source material that inspired it.
Check out the band: https://www.myspace.com/theawakeningband
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