Crystal Tears

Originally coming from the death metal scene, On Thorns I Lay has been known for their constant evolving and versatile approach, changing their style with each album. Their third album Crystal tears marks an important change in their musical direction, changing their previous atmospheric doom-death style to a more introspective romantic type of gothic metal. While this album is generally considered as their masterpiece along with their previous album, Orama, it is clear that this change of style will probably not please more traditional fans of metal, including the fans who enjoyed their early raw type of extreme metal. Indeed, if your conception of metal is all about being strafed by a charge of fury, fast riffs and blast beats to stay awake, by all mean, go on your way. This album is not for you. Worse: if the presence of clean etheral female vocals and whispered vocals and moody stuff is an abomination to your conception of music, then please run away from this as fast you can, you will hate everything about it. Don’t waste your time.

On the other hand, if you're a bit more open-minded or simply into that type atmospheric gothic music performed by bands such as early Theatre of Tragedy, early Lacuna Coil or Avrigus, this album should probably be for you. It's a beautiful piece of emotions, contemplation and atmosphere. As already mentioned, it is an important departure from the sound of their previous album and to be clear, it is so different that you could easily wonder if you are still listening to the same band : no more deep brutal grunts, no more fast guitar rhythms, no more blast beats and no more exotic aquatic atmospheres as found in their second album Orama. And yet, ‘atmosphere’ and ‘nostalgia’ are still keywords in this album as much as they were in the previous album. But while the latter explored a warmer mediterranean type of mood with a brutal heavy sound, here the atmosphere of Crystal Tears is more that of a mystical romantic setting in some forest by fall season. What we have here is a slow soft atmospheric type of metal enhanced with arrangements featuring viola, piano, organ sound and ethereal female vocals.

The mood is especially nostalgic, introspective and meditative. The approach of the band is deliberately more pared down, more simple in terms of structures in order to serve the special contemplative and ethereal mood of the album. While the band can explore more complex and longer songs structures in others albums, here the songs go straight to the point to immerse you. The creative focus is on crafting catchy melodic hooks and developing moods and atmospheres around them. All of this is based on arrangements featuring ballad-like arpeggios made of several layers of clean guitars using reverb, chorus and delay parts to add more atmosphere and texture. They complement with sections made of slow heavy riffs and the deep noble melodic lines performed by the viola and the keyboard. So the creativity is not so much about the complexity of the harmony or the song structure but about this special expressive emotional mood and the arrangement work taking advantage of the assemblage of the various instrumental colors. The ethereal fragile vocals by Marcela Buruiana and the whispered vocals by Stefano Kintzoglou are also instrumental in that regard. The viola lines by Elena Doroftei and the piano sections and interludes by her sister Ionna add a very unique touch of romanticism to the songs that embellish the songs structures. They definitely add something more to the sound of the band.

At the end of the day, "Crystal Tears" is a very classic album, and its appeal rather lies in the simplicity of its hooks. It is a concentrate of pure emotions, expressed in the simplest and most beautiful way possible made to move the listener’s soul (at least the less narrowminded ones who can suffer that type of metal). Every element is meant to serve the sad, melancholic and dreamy atmosphere. This album is definitely a gem for the genre and actually captures everything of what true gothic metal is actually about.