loading...Ceremonial Castings in their days of Gothic Metal - 99%
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Ceremonial Castings, they are two brothers from Washington State, USA [though I believe they now have an official drummer.] They started out with this release being their most melodic and symphonic, and have progressively gotten more of a raw sound as time has gone on while maintaining their special blend of keyboards. Lord Serpent tends to use his lower vocal range in this release as opposed to the higher BM vocals. If you don't like keyboards in your metal, this album is not for you. At this stage Ceremonial Castings strongly resembled Germany's Crematory.
We start out with the Intro track "Into Ever-grey Sadness." It's a beautiful [near] 6-minute-long instrumental using mostly string-synth. "Of Ruins and Shameful Supremacy," features a slow-solo that would rival the likes of My Dying Bride towards the end of the track. "Shadows over Darklands" is probably the highlight of the album, as it is so brilliantly orchestrated and so tightly put together. Most would consider this track doom metal though, so most may not find it quite as appealing as myself. It stays slow-paced throughout the entire song, but very enjoyable. They manage to blend the guitar and keyboards together in a way that I have yet to hear a rival of. The title track "13 Roses" features some odd electronic noises in the background in times of silence. "A Prayer for Ravens" has an extremely eerie keyboard breakdown alittle past halfway through. "Ignite in loneliness" is a keyboard instrumental with spoken-word. At this point, if you're not really paying attention, prepare to shit yourself because the next track "A Serpent's Kiss" explodes with a scream from Lord Serpent. This is probably the fastest track on the album and you'll hear some raspy black metal vocals. "Within the Kingdoms of Dark Obscurity" starts out with chimes and goes into an industrial breakdown on drums. It then goes into a beautiful melodic part on guitar and keys, which quickly turns into pipe organ synth with more gothic rock vocals. It also features another solo towards the end. It ends nicely with another keyboard instrumental.
This demo is definitely worth your money. That is, if you can find it.
Highlight Tracks: Shadows over Darklands, A Prayer for Ravens, A Serpent's Kiss.
