UMUR
Mesmerized is the debut full-length studio album by Norwegian experimental metal act Atrox. The album was released in 1997 by Head Not Found Records.
The music on Mesmerized is generally slow and semi doomy metal blended with post metal/ rock tendencies. There are lots of lead guitar melodies which seems to be the driving force in most of the songs. There are both growling vocals and a female singing. The female vocals by Monika Edvardsen are pretty sure to be an aquired taste. Personally I think the vocals sound like Björk with a hangover combined with some middle eastern sounding notes like the style that Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance practices. I´m not impressed. Actually the female vocals make the already cliché filled doom/ death metal style on the album sound even less exciting.
The production is quite flat and without any punch.
I try to dig out the positives on most albums that I review, but Mesmerized really hits the bottom with a bang. Had the female vocals not sounded as out of tune and weird for the sake of it I could be pursuaded into giving a 2 star rating for the instrumental side of the music but as the album is now I can´t give more than a 1 star rating. I find very few redeeming qualities about this album. Fortunately I know the band have improved greatly on subsequent releases, so I recommend seeking out those before purchasing Mesmerized.