Monika rules the proceedings on the opening “Lay” her atonal soprano soaring above the jarring doomisms which acquire a more elaborate shape on “Ruin”, a standout operatic drama with bold ventures into technical thrash territory among other delectable nuances like a great atmospheric balladic passage. The latter play a more prominent role on the album reviewed here which is a masterpiece of unorthodox, non-conventional metal. Music-wise, however, we had gothic/doom metal of the progressive type, heavy stomping music with more stylish quirks reminiscent of Confessor. To be completely honest, we will have to remind of the German progressive thrashers Aeons End whose vocalist Gaby Weihmayer was the first to try more adventurous, anti-aggressive avant-garde singing Monika appearing a worthy follower of the German diva. She was leading the show now “the beast” having disappeared somewhere “into the woods”, to these ears for the better. What made the album really stand out was the girl’s, the name Monika Erlandsen, vocal style which had a unique bizarre dramatic pitch including several brilliant atonal tirades that didn’t sound like anything else at the time, and even nowadays such outlandish vocal bravado is very rare to come across. However, the Atrox saga became much more intriguing three years later with the excellent “Contentum”, an original avant-garde take on the progressive metal idea with some of the doom/gothic flavour of old still hanging around. “Mesmerized” was a cool debut following the death/doom metal path again with the “beauty & the beast” vocal duel fully epitomized, thanks to a female addition to the line-up, the guys (and a girl) recalling their compatriots Theatre of Tragedy quite a bit. They changed their moniker to Atrox, and produced two demos of more complex death/doom along the lines of My Dying Bride and early Paradise Lost.

Even representatives from the black metal fraternity like In the Woods, Arcturus and Minas Tirith joined the fray on subsequent works to make their homeland a major exporter of serious, though-out music.Ī young death metal outfit from Trondheim named Suffocation (no, not these ones!) decided to abandon their brutal roots, and make a contribution to said scene. Before you know it, the progressive metal arena was owned by Norwegian acts like Circus Maximus, Spiral Architect, Ram-Zet, Pagan’s Mind, Manitou, Scariot, Communic, etc. The progressive metal field seemed available for conquest at the time, and what helped the process was that Norway already had a leader on that field in the face of the legends Conception who were more than happy to head the conquest campaign. Some time in the mid-90’s the Norwegian scene got tired of the whole second wave of black metal craze, and started looking for other horizons to explore.

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