UMUR
"Nox Draconis Argenti" is the debut release from Belgian (Zwijndrecht, Antwerp) extreme metal act Axamenta ( if you don´t count the two demos "Echoes (1995)" and "Into a Dream (1997)" which preceded it). "Nox Draconis Argenti" is an EP and the playing time is 28:01 minutes so in terms of quantity it´s well worth the money. The EP was independently released in November 1999.
The music on the album is symphonic and melodic black metal with lots of orchestral keyboard arrangements. Listening to the bombastic and symphonic classical intro "The Revenant's Dirge" almost led me to believe that this was a side project by the guys in Rhapsody of Fire. Throughout the album the keyboards are very dominant in the soundscape. The vocals are predominantly black metal rasps but there are some female singing too. Now I said that the music on "Nox Draconis Argenti" is black metal but the keyboards have a tendency to give the music a vanilla power metal touch that unfortunately drains the music of energy. And believe me it´s not like there´s much energy there to drain in the first place. The music is very generic. Nothing here hasn´t been tried at least a hundred times with more success by bands like Dimmu Borgir or Old Man´s Child.
The musicianship isn´t too impressive but the the most grueling error on "Nox Draconis Argenti" is the lack of power and memorable hooks in the music.
The production is below standard and most of all sounds like a demo recording. The keyboards are too high in the mix and the raspy vocals are too low. The guitars sound weak and tired and the drums sound muddy.
This is not a good start for Axamenta and I really hope some of their later releases improve in quality. I can´t stretch with this one. A 1 star rating it is.