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| This very obscure band plays heavy and somewhat brutal traditional doom. The music is grooving, but also pounding. It should be noted that it is incre... (see more) |
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| Raventale - Mortal Aspirations (2009) |
It’s nice to see an artist with a vision of his own, to hear some good music with a focus. Raventale is a one man band from Ukraine; Astaroth, the headmaster has gathered together the heavyness of Doom, the sharpness of Black, the eeriness and spacey vibes of electronic music to bring us an original, tasty and exciting album. Mortal Aspirations is already his third release and the quality never failed.
I remember having recieved Long Passed Days, the previous one from Solitude Productions - which, through its subdivision BadMoodMan Music, supports the artist since that second album - and at that time having thought: ok, THAT is good (which means than the selective tastes of Solitude/BadMoodMan can sometimes be more hazardous). Anyway, when I gave that third album its first spin, I was at once reassured: the sound was as heavy and dark, the blend was once more perfectly balanced.
There is grandeur in Raventale’s flights of brooding lyricism. The keyboard’s part are cleverly placed rather far in the mix, only serving as a melodic backing, always present, always discreet ; it works as an omnipresent mournful aura that gives depth to the music and lightens it a bit also. Otherwise, this is a thick broth; I like the hoarse black-ish vociferations of Astaroth, never too far from the typical Death Doom growls. The drumming is obviously processed, what I don’t mind personnaly; it adds some kind of bleakness and urgency.
But there’s a true originality in Raventale’s features: about some bands, you can say: ok, the guys scream their lungs out and they also grunt; there are blastbeats and mammoth drumming, there are tremolo pickings and heavy guitars; it’s sharp and crushing: it’s BLACK DOOM then! That’s how it goes most of the time. With Raventale, i’d say it’s different : what you have here is a Doom band covered with a Black-ish shroud. The sound is black-ish: it’s fierce, bleak, cold. The guitars, if very heavy, keep that archetypal blurred texture – they sometimes also venture in softer and more melodic territories, some delicate lines that Astaroth perfectly delivers. This is Doom in the intentions: mournful and epic poetry, oppressing fate; this is Black in the uneasiness and instability of the forms and volumes.
Raventale achieves some very coherent music on this opus. On top of it, he does it with great talent. Let’s hope he will go on producing albums of this kind; we can’t have too many of them.
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1. The Fall of the Mortal Aspirations
2. Cosmos Inside
3. My Birds of Misfortune
4. A Fading Scent of Cinnamon and The Naked
5. Watching a Luna Becomes Thy Face
6. The Silhouette of Despair
7. Escape to the Stars
8. Suicide As the Destined End
9. A Ravens Fade
Duration: Approx. 52 minutes
Visit the bandlist page for Raventale
| Reviewed on 04-04-2010 by Bertrand Marchal |
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| Pick of the Month |
Demonia
'Divine Tragedy' |
...What makes Demonia so special is their ability to make music that harmonizes into beautiful melodies without any particularly impressive guitarplay or soloing. It all cumulates into a single holistic aura...
Read the full review here.
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