 13/02/2007 "I have to confess that I was surprised. This is what happens when you start judging the album by the cover and then you listen to it and the style is completely different from what you expected. I expected sort of a hardcore album and this is something completely different. A short intro in “The failure of me” leads us into melodic metal with plenty of powerful riffs and strong ideas. The main thing here is the guitar that delivers the riffs and also the main melodies that soon get sticked into your mind. The vocals here are a litlle bit muddy doing well developed melodies but is a little bit in the back of the compositions. There is melancholy in tunes like “Changes” fitting well the spirit of the music that is a combination of epic and melancholic feelings. There is a King Diamond cover of the “Welcome Home” tune from the album “Them” that has the spirit of the original tune but with the original Stigma sound. A good work from this guys from Trondheim." 11/01/2007 
02/01/2007 HAPPY NEW YEAR!! The first demo from our upcoming album "Solitude 24/7" is now complete. The songs are'nt quite done yet. Lyrically there's a lot to do yet! But musically the songs have taken shape. We're proud to say that we're very satisfied with the result and needless to say this will be the best Stigma album ever! If not, why bother?! 19/11/2006 “…THE FAILURE OF ME…” (Tyntis Records) Stigma is a band that comes from Norway and was formed back in 2000. I haven’t listened to the band in the past so I didn’t know what to expect from them. When I listened to the album I was totally liked its variety but in the end I couldn’t say that Stigma reminded me this or that band... ‘cause this album has its own identity. On the other hand, I’m not satisfied at all by the production of the album if we consider the fact that this is the fifth release of Stigma. The production is too weak and not clear enough although all the performances are very good. Stigma is a weird case... some will like their “unusual” approach on music but others will not like ‘em at all. Some good ideas within their songs will go by unnoticed due to the bad and unprofessional production. I’m sure that with a better production that would help the songs this band would have been much better. T.A. 5/10 8/11/2006 
Check it out! 02/10/2006 I guess you're all a bit curious on how the new album is coming along? I will try to fill you in. As mentioned before this will be some kind of a concept album. The title is "Solitude 24/7" and it basically describes a average week in the life of a working class man who gets up in the morning, goes to work 5 days a week and is most of the time just looking forward to the weekend, when he can get wasted on alcohol! This sounds a bit simple and it is, actually... We are not telling a story here directly. The clue is that every day has a certain emotion. Mondays sucks, Wednesday has the mid-week feel and Friday is great. The album has two tracks for every day. One of them titled Monday, Tuesday... and so on. The songs are shaping and we're about to record some pre-demo versions of the tracks we got so far. We will of course put some tunes out on the web for you to hear. More news to come. Cheers, StigRR 28/08/2006 15/08/2006  24/07/2006 18/07/2006 Review, 4/10 10/07/2006 06/07/2006 05/05/2006 "...the failure of me..." Tyntis Records - 2005 Reviewed by: Anna Naydenova Date Reviewed - 04/28/06 While Norway's Stigma has been around for a long time - ... the failure of me... being their fifth release - word of them has not reached me previously. More is the pity. I am a sucker for this type of slightly darker sound. To me it is the great compromise between the doom-and-gloom and the happy-go-lucky approach. It is the middle ground not often heard these days. The overall sound on the CD is a bit muffled, but interestingly enough it is very fitting. The title song has Candlemass overtones especially in the verse. It is heavier, darker progressive direction that Stigma is taking. Great guitar melody. Probably my favorite. The flow of ...the failure of me... is very consistent. All songs are strong with a rich sound. Overall it is not-so-doomy-doom, if I were to give it any type of definition. Hotel of stigmas has a good riff and a good melody, but the vocals seem off and out of place... The soft opening verse of Echoes of time accompanied only by guitar and bass is well-placed and satisfying. Welcome home is a King Diamond cover. Why does everyone want to do covers these days? While okay, much as in the case of Pale Divine, I'd rather have more original material from these guys. The album art is unique. The perplexed hurt cat is so far from the style of the songs... yet it permeates the promo booklet. I love it! I wish more bands had fun with their album covers the way Stigma seems to. What I like about the closing remix of the title track is the prominently featured bass guitar and the growling vocals. This is how remixes should be done in my opinion. It is transformed into a different song with a personality of its own rather than an imitation of the original. Someone who does this with excellent results is... don't kill me for having non-Metal tastes, as well... Moby. I like this as the closer. It is gloomier, darker, and more aggressive than just about anything else on the album. Stigma say they do their thing and are resistant to change, but I would not mind if they do more of this type of thing. A very intriguing underground find. There are lots of interesting numbers and passages. It is diverse, yet consistent. Alas, the prog elements did end up being just that - elements, but I did appreciate finding them there. The band claims that fans either love them or hate them. There is middle ground, though. I am there with a lean towards the love camp. Not incredible, but very good at least. Keep rocking! 14/04/2006 06/04/2006 Stigma – “The Failure of Me” By Marcus Pan When The Failure of Me, namesake of Stigma’s release of the same name, first opened I thought the keys were quite cutesy and I was thinking this was going to be something of a new-wavey flashy trancy thing. Not so. Stigma crash in the guitars. The technical merit is decent, but for some reason it’s not really grabbing me and making me want to slam my head. I suppose it has something to do with the cutesy keys against the heavy metallic guitars. Vocals are far in the background, giving the album an underproduced feel. The guitar playing of Stig Rune Robertsen and bass of Endre Hindhammer are somewhat standout and well-played, but The Failure of Me suffers as a whole from underpar recording. I suppose you can’t blame them much for that – but I would suggest raising the vocal levels so they don’t get lost in the guitar uproars. Time seems to drag a bit, guitars moving just swiftly enough to not fall into the grunge mindset, but vocals seem somewhat left behind somehow. Echoes of Time is a slower paced ballad and Hotel of Stigmas gets lost within itself without a destination in mind. Move On gets a bit crunchier with stronger bass and chorus sections that lighten up the mood just a bit giving an interesting feeling as we move between crunchier melodies and windier choruses. The guitar solo of Move On is one of the areas where I feel comfortable saying that there is technical merit here. We see the same kind of dragging problem with I Don’t Know as well, but Welcome Home shows us again the technical merits of Stigma’s musicianship even if the vocals still have that dragging feel and aura of not belonging to the surrounding music – a puzzle piece that was forced into the peg. Nothing on The Failure of Me really stands out so well. Overall it’s not that Stigma’s The Failure of Me is bad. It’s not, really, but it does tend to lose itself a bit as it pushes along. Sometimes it gets lost or stuck in a bit of a quagmire as it tries to trundle its way through the nine tracks here. Contact Information: Stigma Post: Ulstadlokkveien 26, 7042 Trondheim, Norway Phone: (479) 007-3559 E-Mail: stigmas@home.no Web: http://home.no/stigmas  04/04/2006 Style – Melodic Rock Origin – Norway Mike’s Review – Yikes! If you check out any review of these guys, you will find basically the same message in every review. This CD will bore the crap out of you. Well, even though my review may pass on the same message, I am going to elaborate a little more than the other reviewers did. If you are looking for something with a lot of energy to it, this CD totally blows. This is a jam CD, not something you would find at metalfest. It reminds me of a few guys who sat down in the studio and just jammed together. I use to listen to my friends do it now and then and loved it. And if you pay attention to the music and totally ignore the dreary ballad-like vocals, this CD is listenable. The Maiden influence in the first couple tracks is a plus. Even the vocals can be ok at various times. This kinda reminds me of what you would have got if Dave Mustaine got a little softer and released an album full of depressing ballads about how life just isn’t going his way. One or two tracks of that wouldn’t be bad. But 8 tracks of this and a King Diamond cover isn’t something I will ever find myself listening to again. With a few suggestions, these guys could turn into something really good. Unfortunately, right on the CD sleeve, these guys say they don’t listen to suggestions of reviewers and just play what they want to play. I respect that, but maybe somebody else should tell them. http://home.no.stigmas Vocals: 4.5 Music: 7 Production 7 Originality: 6 Overall: 5.5 (out of 10) 21/03/2006 Reviewed on Lords of metal. The trend goes on... Too much focus on sound quality and the artwork, but I guess we had that one coming! 07/03/2006 Review on Marios metal mania. 55/100 06/03/2006 Reviewed on the German "Blodchamber" website. 4/10 05/03/2006 Release date not yet confirmed. 15/02/2006 Though this is not the best review we're archived with full biography on their website and that's more important in this case... 09/02/2006 Reviewed by Marco Gaminara in the "Live 4 metal" music website. Review by Marco Gaminara Man, this was kinda painful to review. Primarily because the music is kinda hard to classify. The guitars can be heavy, but are mostly playing intricate little melodies. The bass is being slapped and pops and there are some amazing little runs up and down the fret board with very laidback drumming pretty much just keeping time. They aren't metal by any stretch of the imagination, but fall more into a rock category of sorts. The vocals on "The Failure Of Me" are melodic and sound like they could be on either a pop or pop-goth song. The mournful "Time" has me thinking of Katatonia, but more because it's that laconical, rather than heavy and again the bass stands out as the focus instrument to me. The minimalism of the acoustic guitar and accompanying vocals make "Echoes Of Time" a bit of a sleepy number, but at the same time giving it the perfect morose feel that it requires. When the distorted guitar takes over, the song remains slow with well sung vocal harmonies carrying it to a new level. Lead solo over what could be a bass solo and off key vocals make the cacophony of "Hotel Of Stigmas" a bit difficult to come to grips with. I guess there are just too many things happening simultaneously which don't meld together well to make it a well constructed song. While it starts off sounding like it could be following in a similar vein, the vocals on "Move On" sound far better sung and carry you onto a level of depression which they wouldn't be able to do if you were being annoyed by them. When you consider that this band was formed just to record a couple of Xmas carols for the hell of it, it's definitely come a long way and man those must've been the most depressing carols to listen to over the suicide season if "I Don't Know" is anything to go by. Not too sure how much of a "Welcome Home" this song would be for most people, but it's certainly not Metallica, even if the guitars and vocals are a touch heavier than anything else on this CD. "Changes" would've been a great little outro for this CD as it's simple and well played, but owing to the "The Failure Of Me (Remix)" tagged on to the end, it wasn't. Now the remix is twice as long as the original at nearly 8 minutes long. While pleasant enough to listen to owing to being heavier than the original, it does feel like it's dragging on a little, but then that does tend to happen when the songs are extremely slow and long anyway. Not bad, but something I'd probably only ever listen to again if I were in the right mood. http://home.no/stigmas/ 01/02/2006 22/01/2006 Stigma is also registered on uhort.no  11/12/2005 Some changes from the original tracklist. 1. The failure of me 2. Time 3. Echoes of time 4. Hotel of stigmas 5. Move on 6. I don't know 7. Welcome home 8. Changes 9. The failure of me 06/12/2005 Drums were recorded at Shabbey road and the result ended up being worth to add. From the original version remains vocals, acoustic guitars and guitar solo's. 20/11/2005 "I don't know" from the "Solitude" album was recorded and may appear on "The failure of me" album as well, but this is not yet confirmed. 18/09/2005 1. The failure of me 2. Time 3. Hotel of Stigmas 4. Move on 5. Welcome home 6. Echoes of time 7. Changes 8. The failure of me (remix) 20/06/2005 "The failure of me" an album that was supposed to be released in 2001! From the original album remains only the two titletracks "The failure of me" and "The failure of me (Remix)"  |