Centuries of Deception was an obscure Californian black metal band that released only one EP, Heic Noenum Pax, before just vanishing. They never broke up, they just flat out vanished. I was drawn to this EP by the creepy old woman on the cover. Seriously, that thing is creepy. But how does this EP sound? Let's find out.
Unfortunately, it's not very good. The most obvious problem with this EP is the drum machine. The cymbals are obnoxiously loud and seem to overpower the rest of the music. This drum machine only seems capable of pulling off the simplest of rhythms and blast beats and the double bass sounds more like a soft tapping. There's no variation in their performance and they get old really fast. They're not as bad as Mortician's drum machine, but it's still pretty bad. The vocals consist of a weak croak. It sounds like he's not putting any effort into his performance at all. They're more lazily done than Inquisition's vocals.
The only good part about this EP are the guitars. Although the distortion is thin and weak, the riffs are still nicely constructed. They're ice cold and seem to have a touch of melody to them. Unfortunately, they seem to be completely drowned out by the other elements. Whenever I encounter a good riff, this asshole starts loudly croaking over them.
Let me just clarify that I don't go into albums wanting to hate them. I'm not some cynical, misanthropic asshole who constantly hates on everything. I always hope the album is good, even if the cover art looks like shit. Unfortunately, there are times when my hopes are dashed by either bad production, bad songwriting, or bad musicianship. This is one of those cases. The guitars are good, but they're ruined by lazy vocals and a badly-programmed drum machine. What a disappointment.
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