In the end, everything is copying of something, call it a rip-off or artistic expanding of certain sound/visual, or pure copying - it's just the way you look at it. My opinion about Farmakon's music is, that it's well on the way of developing something new, but you can't develope anything new unless you know enough about the stuff you are about to expand. I'm not actually sure what is the direction Farmakon is taking, but I certainly hope they are doing it the only proper way - one big step by step on every album, aiming to a far-away goal and not being satisfied too much by any album. So that every album would be musical leap forward, not repeating...
...So, looking things this way, Farmakon's A Warm Glimpse is the best decision these guys could make. Pushing everything they've got so far on this package, but not taking it too far from the familiar, so that somebody would actually want to listen to them. The fact is, that these guys are not as skilled as they will be in say 5-10 years - of course. They are very skilled, much more than 80% of debyting metal bands, but they will evolve in time to be a very remarkable reformer and innovator in metal business. They just have to start slowly - if they would've made a perfectly new, completely innovative and totally revolutionary album with their current skills, they wouldn't even have a recording contract, not to mention fans and listeners. So, a slow start forward is a good thing - if I'd be their manager, I would've even asked them to take more trash-elements on their debyt album, and reduce the amount of jazzy-funky -stuff, so that there'd be mainly mainstream-death and trash with a hint of speciality. The second album would've be more like that, and third album would be the first truly new album they'd make. That way they would first gain a strong group of fans and couple of bucks, and more importantly - The Skill To Make A 5/5 -Album. During the musical evolution progress they would lose couple of the slayer/pantera -fans, but the new direction would truly reach the people in fond of that style of music. Or even better, the people would find their evolution to fit for their musical needs.
Well, this is all fantasy, but I can see that these guys certainly HAVE the possibility of making themselves an important metal band. And the album "A Warm Glimpse", which I have listened now about 10 times, is certainly a very very good start towards stardom.
And... Who the fuck invented both graphical signatures and smileys in a message board system. Goddammit I hate them.
Timo.
