As the Angels Reach the Beauty

After the tremendous success of Cradle of Filth in the late 90s there was a plague in the black metal scene, when many bands tried to copy this kind of mixture of black metal and gothic metal, most of them in an uninteresting way or simply with a tremendously poor quality and lack of personality. Anyway, like with any other musical trend some quite interesting bands can be found in this mare magnum of mediocrity. The Italians Graveworm were one of the best ones, its quite sad to see how they have never been able to maintain the exquisite quality of their first 3 works, unfortunately they have become with each album more and more predictable and boring, but thats another story. Now its time to review their sophomore album beautifully called “As the Angels Reach the Beauty” (yes, I love this title), and if the title is great what to say about the spectacular album cover which is made by the Spanish artist Luis Royo. The image is a marvellous mixture of beauty and cruelty, which by the way, defines perfectly the music of these Italian musicians.

ATARTB represents the perfect combination of black metal and gothic metal, not only musically but also lyrically, musically is undoubtedly their most inspired album by far, each composition has its distinctive melody and structure, the album opener is a perfect example of this. “A dreaming beauty” is a marvellous composition with an initial gorgeous melody based on a violin and bagpipes which is closely followed by the typical raspy vocals and characteritic riffs, anyway in the rest of the song another instrument takes the lead, the keyboards with some beautiful background sounds are simply perfect. “Portrait of a...” begins with a delicate piano abruptedly ended by some growls and rhythmic drums, but always with the keys being the perfect company to the rhythmic section. A precious violin melody marks another change in the tempo followed by an “in crecendo” in the hardness of this composition, Graveworm surely knows how to add variety to their compositions.

“Ceremonial Requiem” is like an island of calm before the storm, a short but excellent instrumetal influenced by celtic tunes, and once again with some nice piano tunes. “Nocturnal Hyms” (yes, this album is full of awesome songs titles) follows the same path, excellent background keys combined with good riffs and a mixture of raspy vocals and growls, but which marks this song (as the rest of the album) is that contains a surprising change of tempo and an “winner” melody, like the one we find around the fifth minute. Suddenly the song stops and a breathtakingly beautiful melody hipnotizes us, no words can explain how much I love and enjoy listening to it, this is truly what differs a good song from an awesome done, and a good album from a masterpice, as this one is. Excellent compositions like for example, “Behind the Curtain of Darkness” and “Prophecies in Blood” (with this amazing organ in the second part), maintain the high standards of this jewel. Its quite clear that the keys elevate the quality of these songs, reinforcing the majestic and dark amosphere of the whole album, which without this instrument could be good too, but far from the excelency it reaches thanks to the awesome work that Sabine Mair (sadly now out of the band) does, my respect and admiration for her awesome performance in this album.

In Conclusion, “As the Angels reach the Beauty” is unquestionably a gemm of the best gothic/black metal we can reach to imagine, and the only reason because it doesn’t obtain a perfect score is due to this horrendous instrumental called “Graveyard of Angels”, a total uninspired and even an ugly song. Anwyay nothing can destroy the sense of immense pleasure you feel when you listen to this masterpiece. A must have.

There is something wrong with the cover. Really! Whoever had painted it in the first place had no freaking idea about physics. Look at the hair of the fairy or angel (?): the lower part of it drifts upwards for no apparent reason whatsoever. Then there are the reflections in the water. Everyone with at some basic knowledge about optics will see how absolutely absurd it looks: the reflection of the head is … beneath the head? I do not even want to start a discussion on where the 'light comes from; see the female body, and what effect this would actually have on the shadows. Then there is the depth of the water and its impact and moreover also the overall message of this picture. What is the meaning behind it? War is bad? Was he – the dead thing in the pool – a late lover of her and more interested to prove his manliness in a fight than in her? The possible scenarios are countless.

As confusing as the cover is, the music and the performance of the Italian band Graveworm is by no means convincing as well. In terms of the style black and death metal vocals were used, while the music is mixture melodic death and Gothic metal, also some pieces of black metal can be found, but these appear on a small scale. Keyboards as well as slower parts play an important role in the concept of the band. Especially the latter appear not only in some of the instrumentals, but also in the 'normal' tracks and it is their part to support the atmosphere as well as to reduce the overall tempo; as these tend to dominate the breaks in the compositions. Moreover, the instrumentals have often loads of keyboards and attempt to broaden the facets a bit and offer a distraction from the band's main concept. Sadly, there are no solo parts of the guitars which would create such a similar impression, so it is bascially up to the synths to do this job.

Yes, Graveworm's music is very predictable. Once you have listened to one composition, you have grasped a good deal of the formula as the Italians do not more far away from it over the course of the album: quite melodic with some spikes to the top and bottom; a bit aggressive, a bit cheesy. The drums have the part to create a texture like sound in the background, while the guitars basically join them and play simple but catchy riffs. It is up to the keyboards to create the atmosphere and the interesting facets; one might say that the compositions drown in them. Which is a problem due to the minimalist style in which they appear. There are melodies but these appear in a too common fashion and lack really surprising ideas. Graveworm used a basic formula and kept to it in an unnecessary strict way. So, the listener might appreciate the compositions after a listen or two, but those will fail in being fascinating in the long run. As angels reach the beauty wears off over time to a good deal.

Three instrumentals can be found on this album and not only is this an astounding amount for a nine-track release, but also how they have been placed in the album is a bit surprising; to say the least: two 'normal' ones with a succeeding instrumental, repeated three times, this is the basic concept behind this piece of art. How is the band supposed to create some kind of consistent atmosphere with these pointless interruptions? Sadly, the disturbing facets do not stop here. For some inexplicable reason the vocalist has the urgent need to 'sing' (growls, screams) like there would be no tomorrow; not only in terms of the style also in their total share in the band's concept are memories on Cradle of Filth woken. Anyway, Stefan Fiori would like to be Dani of CoF, but fails in his attempt of doing so. The monotonous and often boring style of the vocals make it a pain to listen to them and when considering that they are nearly omnipresent, then the outcome does not need much of an explanation. Moreover, aside from the overall shallowness of the aforementioned performance also in terms of the song-writing a lot is left to be desired. The focus on the two vocalists and the absence of neat elements which would break out of the concept, which becomes predictable over the course of the album, is something which makes it a pain to listen to the songs. Moreover, also the production has its downsides and is by no means optimal; sound of the drums at times to name only one example.

Final bits and bytes
I LIKED, yes past tense, this release when I bought it back in 1999 – it got quite positive reviews in several magazines when it came out –, but over the years and due to my increase activity in review writing, this album has worn down in my perception to a good deal. The reasons for my decision are described above and to me the whole concept has become something really tiring and hard to endure. Even though one might praise the band's performance for their very atmospheric approach, its general shallowness is something they cannot compensate in any respect; left aside neglected when it comes to measure the quality of the album. It is a bit strange to see the outsourcing of the instrumental parts out of the normal compositions into some sort of interlude and as these appear three times over the course of the album, it can be suspected that Graveworm actually intended it this way. Yet, what the meaning and concept behind this is remains hidden. It would have been much wiser to balance the facets of their oeuvre a bit more than separating them from each other as well as emphasizing some unnecessarily.

It is possible to enjoy this album in some respect, but its execution is simply not convincing. Fans of the more commercial branch of black metal (with Gothic influences) might want to give this release a try. Do not come back crying when this album has reached the point of being annoying, though. I warned you!