Isolation

I have a problem with the way the acoustic passages on this album are implemented. Reverie was really pushed as being a blend of black metal and acoustic music (not folk, not acoustic rock, and not metal riffs translated into acoustic music, so I'm not sure how to describe them), but the acoustic and metal passages on this album never really interact. The acoustic passages are used to open and close tracks, but the melodic sense of those passages rarely has a lot to do with the metal parts, so they come off as little unrelated interludes more than integral parts of songs. When I listen to an album, I want to listen to one main piece of music, not two which hardly come together at all.

So beyond the weird frequency of acoustic material, the body of this music is a very perplexing variety of melodic black/death metal with some surprisingly technical playing. The riffs seem derived from a combination of USBM, Norwegian black metal, Gothenburg-style melodeath (particularly on 'Illusional Escape' which makes me check to make sure I'm not listening to Dark Tranquillity at points), and some pinches of thrash and traditional metal. As you can expect, this makes for an extremely varied release from a melodic standpoint, but impressively enough, it comes off as fairly natural and well composed for the most part. Individual riffs which seemingly have little to do with each other are tied together very effectively through snapping drum and guitar fills, allowing the music to blend a lot of disparate elements together very effectively. It's rare that an essentially one-man project is able to evidence so much compositional richness, but this is definitely an exception to that rule.

The other side to all this variation is that sometimes the music seems to get a little ahead of itself. 'Isolation' almost has an overdose of ideas at times, with so many different styles and melodic techniques appearing and disappearing so quickly the music is occasionally quite hard to follow. The surprising technical skill on display really accents this; the riffs are tight and high-flying, dancing around the fretboard and across strings with surprising alacrity (though, very strangely, the acoustic portions often have slipups in timing not seen in the metal sections). The impression I get is that Unknown had a whole lot of ideas that he wanted to combine on this album, and surprisingly enough, he's much closer to having the skill necessary to achieve this than most, but still isn't quite there. Adding to that sense is how the first two tracks of this album feel a lot more thoroughly composed than the rest, which have a slightly rushed quality to them absent from the opening pair. It's a curious release whose reach exceeds its grasp at times, but is still pretty worthwhile.

I'm not sure who 'Isolation' is meant to appeal to; it's an album with an extremely personal feel, the sort of thing you learn that a friend recorded and has had on his computer for several years but never thought to release. It's certainly very interesting music and I recommend that fans of underground extreme metal check it out; if nothing else, it's an exciting and fascinating listen even if it has a tendency to not quite fit in its own clothes.

How do you read a review, reader? Do you listen to the band's music in the moment you follow each of the lines of a written piece, reader? If such is the case, reader, then let me clarify something first, because you might be confused by the music, due to some expectancies whose fulfilment might be doubted. «Reverie» are a black metal band, but the production might suggest something different and could very well fit to a death metal one, too; you have to know this before, reader.

The band this review deals with is a one-man band; some parts of this music have been recorded with the help of a drummer, but the 'brain' is one person only. Luckily this had little effect on the music and of the short-comings of this 'minimalist' line-up not much can be perceived. In fact, the music is quite fascinating and surprisingly well written respectively variable in the way the compositions appear. There are some repetitive parts of course, but unlike on releases from bands with a similar line-up, «Reverie» did not stretch it too far on their self-titled debut.

Nice melodies can be found everywhere and to use acoustic elements works fine with the music and helps to create a good atmosphere. This facet forms a contrast to the general concept of the band stick to faster played music, as the acoustic parts are performed in a rather slow fashion. These appear often at the beginning or the end of a track and help to introduce the motives as well as to let it all fade out gently. Further should be noted that in terms of the atmosphere they differ from those black metal ones, as theirs tend to be rather dark and somehow depressing; while the overarching impression of the album can rather be described as aggressive. As there is no interference of between them, in the sense of interludes in the middle of a track, they are able to work together pretty well and do not challenge each other for dominance.

In terms of the general perception it can be noted that Reverie tries to avoid sounding like everyone does. The songs offer not one of the generic approaches most of the band use, but some interesting features like guitar-solos and breaks in respect to the tempo. In the background a bass adds some volume to the sound and occasionally a second guitar line support the sound when the music drifts away into a solo part. Of the vocals it can be noted that except for the last song, a good deal of distortion has been used. Yet their performance is not some sort of screaming but rather some sort of harsh singing. All these elements have been balanced out quite well and even though the bass-drum has some slight dominance now and then, the whole concept is not as such as to rely on one element to create the atmosphere. As the repetition is kept at a tolerable level and motives are repeated throughout the songs, it is not enduring to listen to the music, but actually quite fascinating.

Note: this description applies only to the songs one to four, as the last one consists entirely of an acoustic guitar and with clean vocals.

What is left to be desired? Well, first of all is the drum sound occasionally a bit strange and overall too cold; in correspondence with the band, 'Unknown', the person behind «Reverie» mentioned that responses on this album pointed towards the production with its death metal sound. It is hard to say if this is good or bad, as the music itself has a good deal of power and volume. Would it sound more black metalish, generally speaking, a lot of bass would vanish and if a colder and harsher sound would work with the songs is guesswork, yet I would expect them to loose parts of their atmosphere.

A little bit strange is the first song. Not because it is particular bad, but its arrangements are odd. This has to do with the repetition of the opening motive at the end. Even though well written and good to listen to, its second appearance sounds out of place and rather like being placed there, because it was viable option to do so. Speaking of 'flow' as a desired concept in music, such is not existent in this case. The segments are rather assembled that webbed together, whereby the atmosphere suffers from this to some extent and it would do good to the music it such would be avoided on the next releases.

The strength of this release lies in the solidness of the compositions. Despite the 'strange' production and some occasionally appearing plain parts, not much is left to be desired. Rarely do bands have on their early releases a production whose description would be good and adequate and not surprisingly does the self-titled debut from this American band suffer from the same short-coming. Generally, the music is well written, has some nice moments, no graven flaws but on the other hand also no real outstanding characteristics. Even though acoustic parts have been used on the debut of «Reverie», they appear only on a small scale and then with little impact on the whole concept only. Perhaps both elements, the aforementioned and black metal, should try to find a basis in which they support each other and use the beneficiaries from each of them. Enough of the criticism, this is a really nice piece of black metal, wrapped a jacket of death metal.