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Aesma Daeva - _The Eros of Frigid Beauty_ (Root of All Evil, 2002)
by: Aaron McKay (2 out of 10)

Besides the well-worded title, this re-recorded effort comes across
as drunk on its own sense of transgenre bullshit, much like Dudley
Moore in Arthur -- and please know I hate to disgrace that movie with
this comparison. Aesma Daeva fans, mostly related to the band I would
assume, will say that I am not able to hear the beauty of this hybrid
zoological garden soundscape. Rubbish! The problem is I hear it TOO
WELL! In order to become aware of the menagerie at hand, the listener
must be at least modestly interested in understanding where the band
is going with their music; I am not. The female vocals tend to
nurture drowsiness expedited along by the classical guitar style of
AD's main-brain, Jon Prassas. Violence is most certainly the last
thing you think of when Aesma Daeva comes to mind, but to illustrate
a point: even all the talent in the entire world spread out like grey
matter on a wall after a shotgun blast to the head couldn't make this
disjointed effort any more interesting. _The Eros of Frigid Beauty_
takes the "artsy" approach to metal about -three- steps too far. To
understand what I mean, spin _Stormblast_ from the beginning, take
out all the black metal and its implications -- what you have left is
what you can expect from AD. To go one more and play upon the already
weak "AD" reference, the only wish I have for this particular disc is
that it would have been left in the "BC" period! Not a funny crack?
Well, this disc isn't either -- it's pitiful.

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