Acheron: Those Who Have Risen (1998)

This is the last of the three straight Acheron posts, and possibly the last one.  I have not been blown away by this band as I thought that I would be.  That's a shame, but not unheard of.  This is the band's fifth album and seems to have a general concept of vampirism. 

Yesterday's subject was pretty damn good, but somewhat hard to get into.  This is a much more straightforward album, ditching most of the intro tracks, though there are occasional keyboard-driven interludes.  In fact, that brings me to my overall complaint about the album: the over-reliance on keyboards.  I am not such a metal purist that I despise the use of keyboards in metal, but I generally prefer them to be in more of a supporting role.  They kind of take the lead on this one, playing almost constantly, but generally playing the same riffs as the guitars which gives the sound kind of a murky, otherworldly feel to it.  I suppose it works well given the vampire subject matter, adding a gothic feel to the music, but it does get a little overbearing at times.

Beyond the keyboards, I am just not really blown away by the compositions here.  The songs generally fail to make much of an impact and sound clumsy at times.  There are some decent tracks on here, but most of it is just kind of generic.

I do not hate this album, and I am not even sure it is safe to say I dislike it.  It just does not make much of an impact one way or the other.  It is listenable, but it is not likely one that I will clamor to listen to over and over again.