THEATRE OF TRAGEDY — Assembly (review)

THEATRE OF TRAGEDY — Assembly album cover

Album · 2002 · Non-Metal

4/5 · 2021-05-30
lukretion

Theatre of Tragedy are one of the most well-known gothic bands of the late 1990s. Their 1995’s self-titled debut album kickstarted the whole “beauty and the beast” doom/death gothic metal scene that dominated in the second half of the 1990s and beyond. By 1998, however, the band had already showed a desire to explore new musical territories, releasing a simpler and more straightforward gothic metal album (Aégis). However, the real shocker came in 2000 when Theatre of Tragedy released Musique, an electro-goth / industrial metal record that really had little in common with the band’s previous three albums. Released in 2002, Assembly continues the musical discourse undertaken on Musique. There are a few differences between the two albums, though, with Assembly sounding more mature and assured than its predecessor.

Musique had one main flaw: it lacked variety. Its eleven songs were far too similar to one another, moulded from the same formula of glitchy electronic loops, sinister robotic vocals and catchy choruses. After two or three tracks, the whole album quickly blurred into an indistinguishable, anonymous blob that made it hard to maintain interest until the last song. Assembly is a huge improvement in this respect. On this album Theatre of Tragedy tweak the formula just enough from song to song to keep things fresh and interesting. The catchy, hook-oriented electro-goth numbers are still there, but they do not dominate the whole album as on Musique. Next to ear candy moments like “Universal Race” and “Envision”, we have heavier and more sinister tracks, like the mean, industrial-heavy opener “Automatic Lover” (one of the best songs of the album), as well as eerie electronic dreamscapes like “Starlit” and “Motion”. Meanwhile, “Liquid Man” embraces more standard gothic metal aesthetics, almost harking back to the sound of Aégis. The alternation between these different moods and styles is crucial for the success of the album, as it injects depth and dynamics into a formula that otherwise would have grown stale very quickly.

Another improvement compared to Musique is that on Assembly both of the band’s singers, Raymond Rohonyi and Liv Kristine Espenæs, feel more at ease with the new sound direction. On Musique, Raymond had adopted a weird robotic, half-spoken signing style which grabbed attention on the first couple of songs, but soon became too monotonous. On Assembly, his approach is more varied. He occasionally uses his robotic vocals, but there are also songs where he adopts a more human and, hence, more melodic singing style. Liv Kristine has also improved relative to Musique. She retains the modern, poppy vocal approach that she had inaugurated on that album, but she is more expressive and nuanced. She seems in much better control of her voice, compared to the cold, deadpan performance she had pulled off on Musique.

Probably as a consequence of the more assured performances of the two singers, it is much easier to connect at an emotional level with this album. There is an aura of melancholy that pervades its eleven songs that is quite irresistible if you are a fan of dark gothic atmospheres. But there is no lack of humorous, happier moments either (the tongue-in-cheek love-story-gone-wrong sung on “Superdrive”), achieving an overall great balance between different moods and emotions. There is also a lot of subtlety in the eleven songs of Assembly, with fewer moments where the emphasis on the melodic hooks is so shamelessly “in your face”, like it was the case on Musique.

Another difference between the two albums lies in the instrumentation that on Assembly is slightly more standard for a metal album. The loops and samples are still there, but they are used more as an embellishment rather than as the main ingredient of the songwriting. The guitars take more centre stage, instead, probably reflecting the presence of a second guitar player in the lineup (Vegard K. Thorsen joined Frank Claussen on this album).

Overall, of all the post doom/gothic metal albums released by the band, Assembly is the record I enjoy the most. It sounds fresh and eager to explore the boundaries of the band’s possibilities, but it also has a maturity and subtlety that elevate the album to a different level compared to its predecessor Musique. The alternation between hook-oriented electro goth/pop pieces and heavier, more intense pieces is one of the main strengths of the album, which remains interesting and enjoyable from start to finish. Featuring a couple of true gems like “Automatic Lover”, “Starlit” and “Motion”, I consider Assembly one of the best albums in the band’s whole discography, second only to masterpieces like Velvet Darkness They Fear and Aégis.