Whyzdom - As Time Turns to Dust

Angry Metal Guy 40

In the curd kingdom of Powermetapolis, in the days just before World War III, things were not well. A cruel wizard, known as Dread Lord Chëëse, had descended upon Powermetapolis with his army — the Trite Trope Troop — and engulfed the lands in flames of predictable parmesan. The echoes of endless Epica clones haunted the air with their carbon-copy cries, over-the-top orchestral orchids had all but choked the indigenous metal flora into extinction, and the kingdom found itself reduced to a laughable shell of its former potential in the wake of the invading tides. Times were trvly tough for Powermetapolis, and in 2007 a group of a peculiar species known as Frenchmen formed an alliance known as Whyzdom, a musical militia whose mission was to bring back the life, the glory, and the powah to the kingdom. This is the 57-minute, fourth chapter of their story, titled As Time Turns to Dust.

Whyzdom‘s ranks comprised warriors trained in the ways of metal, armed to the teeth with the instruments of sonic combat that would be required to blast the dairy debacle into the past. Vynce and Régis possessed strings of justice and a penchant for punctuating passages with tried ‘n’ true chuggatry-chugtuation, if you like. There was Marc and his ivory armada of synthesized sound, and of course, good old Nico and Tristan, bolstering the ranks with pummeled aggression and low-end rhythmic grit. And then there was Marie, the leader of this lot, whose clumsy and ill-trained word-slinging ultimately wrought the great tragedy of which we now speak. With prayers to Nightwish, Shadowside, and ye olde goddesses ov opera, Marie lead her band of would-be warriors away from the hopes of a modest victory and straight into Chëëse’s hands.

Such is the great expanse of the metal realms that one might sympathize with the maiden Marie and how she wielded her wordly weaponry; there has never been a singular, “true” language of powah, and one could hardly fault the fair lady for stumbling on the pronunciation of words spoken in a secondary language, yet the inaugural skirmish of “Armour of Dust” was immediately lost to her faulty enunciation coupled with the ineffectiveness of her unrefined vocal cannons. Quasi-operatic vocals in Powermetapolis had already been explored and overdone with mixed results by the likes of Nightwish, Epica, and countless others; by Jørn, they were practically what lured Lord Chëëse to the lands in the first place, and why our heroine would choose this well-travelled route armed with such questionable weaponry is a mystery to this day. Indeed, Whyzdom were doomed from the start by their own design, and yet Marie was not alone in leading them to their bland and cheesy defeat.

In the great battle of “The Page,” 6 harrowing minutes were spent trying to wrest the kingdom from the claws of Chëëse, but to no avail. Vince and Régis’ uninventive Lacuna Coil of chugtuation lacked the element of surprise entirely, the Trite Trope Troop laid utter waste to the Dimmu Borgirian orchestral armament from the great siege of “Fly Away” and almost every subsequent and subsequently inconsequential battle, and though she could not be blamed entirely for Whyzdom‘s loss it still came to pass that for each enjoyable moment of success found in “Angel of Tears,” there was Marie faltering with off-key assaults and ill-fated falsettos, leading the way to dairyclad defeat. From one track-attack to the next, the Frenchmen remained unable to orchestrate an imaginative and effective assault against Chëëse, armed as they were with but moderate weaponry and under such hapless leadership. Was there any hope for Whyzdom?

No, no there was not.The battle raged on and on, fueled by the venom of hatred for originality and exceptional musicianship, and although the Frenchmen did experience a few minor victories in the days of As Time Turns to Dust, each was fleeting and pyrrhic, too infrequent and stained by too much suffering to be of any merit. Relying on the same battle tactics that had been losing the war to Chëëse for centuries yielded the same dairy drenched defeat that the Trite Trope Troop were famous for inflicting and, though, allowing an awkward and inexperienced grunt to take the command role may have seemed to fit the formula on paper, the Angry Metal Archives will forever tell a tale of tears when recounting the riccottan legend of Whyzdom. If our time talking about these tragedies has taught you anything, let it be the following: what’s cheesed before will cheese again, and if you’re going to follow in the footsteps of a stereotype then make sure you can at least fill those shoes, lest ye wind up wandering the weak and woefully weary way of Whyzdom.
Now get the fuck off my lawn.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 160 kbps mp3
Label: Scarlet Records
Websites: whyzdom.bandcamp.com | whyzdom.fr | facebook.com/whyzdomproject
Releases Worldwide: April 6th, 2018

The post Whyzdom – As Time Turns to Dust Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.