The Glowering Facades of Night

I bought this CD hoping to find a good Doom/Gothic Band. Honestly, the cover of the CD impressed me because the concept's very beautiful and in addition to this, the "Mysterium" name makes you think that you'll find something obscure or something different, at least.

Am I disappointed? Well, yes, a little bit, because this album didn't filled all my expectations, but at the same time, I found another German band to keep an eye on it. But, let me tell you what you will find in this CD, track by track:

"Primordium Misteriorum" or Primal Mysterium, in English, is a good synth based melody that tries to prepare you for the next songs to come. I would say that it's a kind of horror movie soundtrack, but it's accepted because if you were waiting for something obscure, this could be an excellent introduction for it.

"Where morning still stays far away" starts with fast beat and growling vocals followed by Celtic/Germanic guitar notes that sets your mood far away in the past. Lyrics are interesting, talking about a mystical place "where neither hope, nor delight can be". Then, the piano builds a musical bridge and slows down all the song, closer to the Classic Doom style. After several minutes of guitar solo and piano ambientation, female and male voices sing a melody that, I don't know why, but I feel lacks emotion. The song ends after two minutes more, leaving you anxious for something more ellaborated.

I wonder if every Doom Metal band buys as a primal need a record with sounds of pouring rain. "Ceremony of the nightfall" starts with these well known sounds while a clean acoustic guitar makes some basic "arpeggios". After several almost-boring-rounds, female voice sings the firtst verses. The voice here is not amazing... I'd say it's almost a spoken song; there's no emotion on the interpretation of the lyrics. Not even when a male voice does the background vocals and abruptly becomes a growl, fastening the song. You'll hear a flute, some solo guitar and a rushy change of beat. This song is 8:43 minutes long, but only the first 5 worth. No emotions, no coherence. This is a very amateur composition, indeed.

"The red-eye wrath" starts with a flute that works as an introduction and will keep adorning the rest of the composition. Then, all of a sudden, the double kick drums fills the air right before the male voice sings with anguish or something like that. Female voice is almost a whisper, lost behind the sintethyzers and the acoustic guitar. Then the growls come with the distorted guitar and flute as a background, leaving you confused and trying to understand why those creepy changes of beat were the best choice for the band. And like this, the rest of the song goes on, changing every two minutes from one beat to another, but with no relation between them. The melody isn't bad by itself, but the "wanna be progressive" construction of the song makes you want to press the "next" button.

"Ode to the dark one" is a good song. For the first minutes, it follows the ultra slow beat that Doom Metal style has and then explodes and grows with a fast and furious intention. Entirely based on keyboard ambient, the melody is easy and nice to listen; takes you to the hopeless sadness that lyrics have, sinking you in its deepest darkness and making you want to listen to it again and again. Vocals flow through several moods, changing from growls to anguish, from desperation to wrath, giving the audience the chance of feeling something obscure and intense. This is the best song of the album.

"Ere love sank passing fair" music is very similar to Theater of Tragedy first recordings. In the beginning, you will find a strong melody supported by powerful vocals and basic drumming (no double kick drums here) until a muscal bridge provided by an acoustic guitar changes the beat to let the female voice do the vocals. As in the whole album, female voice sounds like they were recorded in a bathtub. Fotunately they report Sabine Tifensee as additional vocals because she has no emotion while singing... or speaking? The strenght this song has is in perfect equilibrium with the low tempo passages making this song another reason to keep an eye on this band.

"Cynthia's child". The very first time I listened to this song, I thought there was a kind of interference between the TV and my CD player. The song starts with a woman talking but... was this monologue taken from a TV soap opera? Is this part of a movie or something? This is curious because even the sound of this part is brighter than the rest of the whole album. In addition of this, the edition was not very affortunate and the change between the monologue and the beginning of the music falls abruptly, making your eyes wink and getting you off guard. Being the longest and divided in chapters, this song is supposed to be the "Conceptual one", but unfortunately the construction is very similar to the past one and you don't realize about this until you check if the track has already changed. But this is not all, after 6:15 minutes, everything changes and confussion gets deeper. Six minutes and a quarter was enough... I think I'll press the "next" button... again.

"Winter enshrined" is a very beautiful song based on piano and sinthesizers. Its mood is very obscure and ethereal. The short lyrics "Fly! Ethereal as thy breath! Lay white like sorrow on our tombs! How! Dreadful as thy children! We art thy gift - poisoned by my serpent tongue..." are whispered while the music flows darker in the background in a waltz (1,2,3/1,2,3) beat. It makes you want to walk on the mysterious and blurry ways the album cover seems to show... Very nice song but, unfortunately, when the piano's doing a more ellaborated melody, the sonf fades away and makes you wonder why this one had to be so short.

Resuming, this is a standard dark doom album. As a first album, I think it could be better, but anyway, makes you want to listen to the next work of this band.