"Where the hell did this come from? Upon browsing through Vrangsinn's other projects beside the infamous Carpathian Forest, I came across this small project entitled "A Waste of Talent", which caught my eye, because of the name. Then upon further research, I discovered their homepage and statements that they are absolutely anti-commercial and absolute nihilists. The project exists since 92', but only after 15 years of "waiting for the end of the world to come", they have decided to record some of their material and enrich the existence of other individuals. A wise choice, since otherwise, this had never gotten to my ears.The album exists only in digital form, with an album cover online and seven songs. AWOT vehemently play a weird style of modern doom metal, infused with elements of 70s psychedelic rock. Imagine a disco hall set ablaze with two sad figures making music inside while the damn thing burns away. This is how this band sounds like. Vrangsinn has never made compromises in the past and this project of his is no exception.The opener and title track starts with some unidentifiable metallic noises that later morph into what seems to resemble (you guessed it) a steamtrain, but sounding more like an old bomb shell factory. After this "intro" Skaperen starts to sing something almost inapprehensible with a very broken-down voice that prepares the listener for the upcoming grief. The respective parts on this song don't really vary much, as the guitar switches between clean repetitive, but catchy parts and slow destructive down tuned riffs. Basically the melodies on most songs are just some chords played back and forth, but with that cool guitar tone they sound anything but boring or monotonous.Now an awesome thing on some songs, including the first track and the self-titled "A.W.O.T.", is that at a particular part on the track, there is a very smoothly induced tempo change. This thrusts the songs into a faster pace and hammers them into the consciousness of the listener. Another aspect is that the songs themselves, while sounding incredibly creepy and depressive, also emit a certain attitude of superiority. Talking about the end of the world and how everything is pointless and wrong really gets you in mood to despise your surroundings even more. Reverb is used on both clean and distorted guitar and on almost every song on this album, adding to the catastrophic perception that is received. They (AWOT) even amplify the dramatic sceneries by adding slow intimidating saxophone parts that finish you off.In a whole: A Waste of Talent have managed to create a whole new style of metal music, successfully merging the past with the future and post-future (the lyrical part). The sound, while being very modern, also uses wah-wah effects on the guitar to really get you in that 70s groove thing, but going so incredibly slow and heavy, that I wouldn't call the state or psychedelic, but neurotic, in a frenzied sense. That's the great nihilistic "passion" with which they play their music. Highly recommended for fans of post-apocalyptic themed music." (Review from Metal Archives)
Band Site: http://awot.misantrof.net/
A Waste of Talent - Psychodelic Steamtrain: http://tinyurl.com/ygdsqks
