Forgotten Tomb - Negative Megalomania

Forgotten Tomb hail from Italy and have only recently released "Negative Megalomania" their fourth full length album.  
Whilst I'm not entirely familiar with their full discography, I had heard excellent things about this band both with regard
to their collective musical abilities, and overall beautifully despondent style.  Although that being said, I didn't know 
what genre to necessarily expect when listening to this release, other than it the fact that it was a melodic tinged release
with harsh vocals of some sort.

What I got was a very Katatonia derivative melodic death/doom album that was well composed, compentently executed and overall
pretty enjoyable.  There are elements of black metal also in the delivery of this album such as the rasping pitch of some of
the more drawn out vocals and rapid snaring in the more chaotically composed sections of songs.  But otherwise, this album
pretty much adhere's to the stylings of something along the lines of "Brave Murder Day".  

There is an epic element to this Negative Megalomania, not only at the most aesthetic song level (i.e. through lengthy songs),
but through the depressing and melancholic tone of the overall album.  Indeed this is accentuated by the fact that
instruments join harmoniously much akin to the style of Primordial's "The Gathering Wilderness" and then slowly thin out into
single instrumentation.  Ultimately what this achieves is a sense of purpose to the album, which is ultimately its saving
grace on making me want to listen to it again, rather than dismissing it as being overly derivative. The other main element
which catches me throughout the album, are the short yet effective, minimalistic interludes which provide chance for 
reflection upon the movements within songs.  Perhaps it is a mixture of my old age and slowly maturing tastes, but of late
I've been enjoying the more "easy listening" parts to songs.  For those of you who have heard Mournful Congregation's "The 
Monad of Creation" this is the best comparison to what I think bands should be trying to achieve in their slow tempo,
typically acoustic interludes.

The main thing I didn't enjoy about this album, I alluded to above, that being it's terribly derivative nature.  Whilst the 
epic sensation to the overall album somewhat salvaged the other enjoyable aspects "Negative Megalomania" has to offer, it is 
a struggle to justify listening to an album such as this, over something like "Brave Murder Day" or even "Tales from the 
Thousand Lakes" by Amorphis. The other hinderance to this album for me was the fairly poorly delivered clean vocals.  Whilst
the harsh death vocals were pretty sound, the clean vocals were whinny and got on my nerve - they sound somewhat like newer 
Sentenced vocals, although admittedly less gritty.  Apparently this album is the first of Forgotten Tomb's to introduce clean
vocals and I have heard fairly mixed reactions to it.  

Overall, I'd say this album would be enjoyable for newer listeners to melodic death/doom and to those who like cleanly 
produced music.  As mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with the way this album has been executed or produced, however
I think for a seasoned listener, you will get bored fairly quickly and will likely just want to skip tracks until you end up
listening to "Brave".  

Stand out track: Title track - Negative Megalomania

Tracks: 
01. A Dish Best Served Cold
02. No Rehan (Final Exit)
03. Negative Megalomania
04. The Scapegoat
05. Blood and Concrete