Band:	Apostolum
Album:	Winds Of Disillusion
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	January 2014

01. Intro (Light Into The Void)
02. Unworthiness And Decay
03. Higher Planes Of Existence
04. Debris Of Perception
05. Less Than A Step
06. Gleam Of Lucidity

What am I doing to celebrate the new year? Probably drinking at home alone... and not listening to this album.

Allow me to explain. This is far from the worst release I've ever heard. The musicians are capable of playing their instruments. The songs aren't distractingly bad. There aren't any weird moments that make you cringe. However, it's just so average, so mediocre, in almost every single way that I can't bring myself to find any joy listening to it. I appreciate that these guys put some effort into finally releasing a full-length album, but simply releasing an album doesn't cut it, especially in this day and age with so many bands experimenting and expanding and growing beyond the limits of genre restrictions.

Unfortunately, Apostolum appear to be mired in some kind of uninspired or uncreative rut. This album marks the band's 10 year anniversary, yet it sounds like a polished demo. The ideas are simple and never receive the elaboration necessary to flow like a typical album. Instead, there's almost an hour of material that follows the same monotonous formulaic structure throughout, making for a rather uninteresting watered down gothic-influenced semi-depressive blackened doom metal-lite album.

Winds of Disillusion is slow-paced, tries to be melodic at times, and even makes an attempt at establishing some kind of... macabre atmosphere. Perhaps more piano work as seen in the intro would help in that regard, or some dissonance to create a more claustrophobic or haunting feel. The flat black metal rasps can be rather grating to ears more accustomed to better ranged and more harmonious vocalists, but overall they don't stand out compared to the accompanying background music, so all in all they shouldn't annoy anyone too badly.

This sounds more along the lines of something that tries to borrow too much influence from any generic gothic metal band from the '90s while refusing to incorporate any kind of innovation whatsoever, although "Higher Planes of Existence" does its best to make up for that. With all of that said, Apostolum won't be entirely without a fanbase. For those who enjoy some My Dying Bride and maybe some Novembers Doom, or even countrymates Forgotten Tomb, these Italians might be exactly what you're looking for.