Акрасия

On a rainy day, when the skies are just pissing down and there are no signs that the deluge will end soon, what more can a sad sod do than play the fifth album by Russian death-doom metallers Revelations of Rain? At least you can learn something for about an hour without getting wet or the umbrella falling to bits because you forgot to replace it last time the weather was bucketing down. Playing this album first time through, you learn this four-piece band deals in very epic, lumbering melodic fusion death-doom metal that features plenty of crunchy jagged riffs, a harsh feel and a lot of depressive atmosphere.

There's heckuva lot to get through on eight tracks, each of which is at least 6 minutes long and a good half of them at over 7 minutes, so the musicians get stuck right into the doom-n-gloom and stay there, moving through "Altar of Whores" at a pace varying from slow to medium-fast, with a fast blast-beat section or two, and including much world-weary melancholy, harsh guttural rasping vocals and some good melodies and riffs that (unfortunately) don't repeat throughout the track so you do forget them and remember the harsh guitars, the heavy rhythms and the dreary moods. "Through Phobetor's Night" is similarly dense, packed with lugubrious riffing, moaning vocals and painful guitar-tone abrasion but near the end the track features a very quiet and dark mini-drama of tolling-bell guitar tone, clicking programmed drum and emphatic beats, as though waiting for final judgement. Beneath the layers of harsh grinding death-doom, occasional clear-toned guitar lines ring out but end up getting swallowed up by the despair.

Each song passes by slowly and gracefully, and while in themselves the songs can be interesting to follow, with some tracks featuring their own little melodramas, put together on the one album they tend to merge into one another. Most songs don't have enough individuality or repetition of distinct melodic themes that would make them different from one another. The instruments used are the same all the way through, and listeners might wish for at least one track to have a slightly different instrumental mix, even if just a dreaded analog synthesiser masquerading as a fake orchestra is included. So to hear the album all the way through can be mind-numbing the first couple of times - yes it's good technically but the monotony combined with the album's dense quality is heavy going. The band sails away as if on autopilot and signs of originality or a possible outbreak of deranged fretboard shredding are nowhere to be heard in its wake.

The album might have worked better if each song featured an extra instrument unique to it or the atmospheres and moods on each song had been enhanced with effects that also made them unique to the track. Then again, Revelations of Rain may be just happy refining their style and keeping their current fans happy. At this stage of their career though - "Akrasia" is the band's fifth album - the guys might consider trying something that takes them away from their comfort zone on the next album.