Ames de marbre

I remember when I heard the music of Sadness for the first time. It was their second demo – “Eodipus”, somewhere in 1993 at my friend’s house. I was stunned by these two tracks and we listened to it over and over again. I will always remember the first time I heard these bestial vocals!!! I simply fell in love with that totally awesome music. Luckily, Sadness recorded their first full album shortly after I discovered their existence. So, when I finally got the debut album – “Ames De Marbre” (pirat version by Polish Carrion Rec.), I rushed home with that tape, impatient to listen to it. What I first noticed about this album was that the music was a bit less bestial and raw than the demo, but after first two listenings to it I didn’t care anymore because it was still obscure and enigmatic music.

Music from this recording is not easy to classify. It is not death metal, but in some parts it is so heavy that it will crush your bones! It is not a typical black metal album but it is so dark and obscure, so cold and strange that not many black metal bands are able to get such an evil spirit in their music. This is not doom metal, but the slow, melodic and dreamy parts of this album can easily compete with such albums as “Clouds”, “Gothic” or “As the Flower Withers”. It is not trance or any ambient stuff either, but when you listen to this music in the dark, all alone, and you listen to it loud, it will carry you into the morbid, “dreamy” trance, and will take you on a trip to a weird, eerie world; to the world of nightmares!!!

It is really difficult to describe with words what is going on in this music. Every composition is really elaborate, with a big variety of emotions turned into sound. The main and strongest assets of it are two things – excellent and diverse vocals, and the ghostly atmosphere captured in it. The vocals vary from whispers, spoken parts, bestial screams, natural male voices and furious growls, etc. Also in some parts there are some female voices, but not too sweet, mostly in the background and a bit hidden except for some little parts. What is interesting too, Sadness uses a few different languages. That’s about vocals. Now let’s talk a bit about mentioned “atmosphere”. This is also mainly created by the vocals, but as well by the rest of the instruments. There are some keyboard arrangements – like the female voices, they are pushed into the background and not so evident, but I think that a big part of this “atmosphere” in the music from “Ames De Marbre” was accomplished by the use of this instrument. You can also find some parts played on flute, cello or violin, and some other weird instruments which also add some more flavor to this album. Some tracks are more “ritualistic” and less metal, such as for example “Tristessa”, which sounds to me like some Native American “ritualistic visions”…? On the other hand, you get pure metal tracks like the next one – “Opal Vault”, which is much faster and more brutal. “Red Script” is a track that comes from Sadness’ “Eodipus” demo. Here, it is re-arranged and with different sound; recorded again with the rest of the material for this album. I like it better in the original demo version, but it wouldn’t match here with that raw sound from the demo. The drums, guitars and bass are arranged in a simple manner, so there are no technical advanced parts. Everything is simple and uncomplicated, and that’s also what I praise in this music, because what I found over the years of listening to metal is the fact that the best albums ever made are simple but full of genuine emotion!

Once again – as it almost always happens with the albums I like most – this release is a bit too short. It lasts only 36 minutes so I wouldn’t mind if there was an extra track or even two.

After almost 20 years since its official premiere, “Ames De Marbre” got re-released in vinyl format with both of Sadness’ demos in addition to the songs from the debut album. I’m not sure what went wrong with the front cover, but when I held my copy for the first time in my hands, the front cover art was a total disappointment to me. It is way darker than original, with faded colors and low resolution. The picture you can find here in Metal Archives is a million times better quality. I’m surprised that Iron Tyrant - the label responsible for this re-release - decided to release this album with such a crappy quality front cover. But still I’m happy and proud to have my own copy in my collection.

After “Ames De Marbre”, Sadness recorded two more materials. When the first of them – “Danteferno” - came out, the story repeated. I went to the store again, bought a tape version of it and impatiently rushed home to listen to it. Unfortunately it came out in times when most of the “melodic death/ doom, black/doom” bands got more shitty with every next album they recorded – Tiamat, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Nightfall, Anathema, Therion, Samael, The Gathering, Opeth and hundreds of others started to play softer, pop-like, clean vocals, etc and started to suck. And unfortunately, that’s what happened to Sadness, too… It was still a good release, but way weaker than the debut and aforementioned demo “Eodipus”…

I bought this album long ago on a resale, was intrigued by the name of the band and the artwork of the CD. I used to like it enough, at least to value it for various reasons, mainly because there weren't many bands that were inspired by Gothic atmosphere at that time (as far as I know). Another thing is that this album is curiously theatric and eccentric, as the previous reviewer has mentioned, mainly due to the strange vocals that seem like struggling between feelings - they are hysteric without being decidedly brutal, there is something clean in them. The bad thing is that sometimes this kind of vocals gets me annoyed - they seem overdone, with pronounced accent, and sometimes don't stick with the melody - of course, it's my personal point of view.

Anyway, there are delightful female vocals too, as well as non-conventional instruments on some tracks. In particular, the song "Red Script" is very sweet - at some part through the song there come a nice violin, nice spoken female vocals, and a sweet melody. Lyrics are in English with some pieces in French and Spanish.

Still, I should say that it's a bit disturbing (although very curious and worthwhile) listen..

Sadness is an obscure band where I come from. I literally knew nothing of this band until I found it on this site. I got this release in a tape trade and upon hearing immediately fell in love. There is just something about it that grabs my attention. For a long time I could not even decide if this was a metal recording, the music, indeed is very gentle. The compositions are slow and layered out of sparse melodies, which are performed on almost clean guitars and a very pronounced distinctive bassline, but always with an underlying rhythm guitar crunch. The predominantly male vocals are a distinctive, soaring scream, keeping a point of reference to us metallers. Track 2 “Lucurs” is probably the best example of this approach as well as the best track here. The songs are masterfully written – comprehension requires many listens as there are many parts and the thread of musical narrative twists and turns, always building up to a climax. There are some well-placed female vocals on this as well, chanting and moaning their lyrics…All resulting in a beautiful and indeed very sad album. In other words this release is a very worthy one, but eccentric and unusual. It will not come to everyone’s taste and in fact is not extreme enough to appeal to most fans of Doom Metal. But if you want a challenging listen this is it, my only complaint is that it is too short!