Please Forgive Me Oh Lord

Aww, was Winter Psalms really where the increases in musical quality started to level off? I hope that turns out to be incorrect in the long run, but the band's subsequent full-length, Please Forgive Me Oh Lord, seems to indicate that that's the case. It fixes a few things and messes up a few others, and overall it's pretty much equal to its predecessor.

I can't really think of much to say specifically about Please Forgive Me Oh Lord because it's essentially Winter Psalms with a few alterations here and there - Cesare hasn't really changed up the band's sound much at all in between the four months between the two albums' releases. The guitar is still relatively quiet and the tone is really thin, but acceptable for DIY black metal standards; the vocals are still a cawing rasp that's okay but could be better if it was a screech; the riffs are mostly conventional black metal tremolo melodies, still meh and forgettable when observed with the infinite sea of black metal bands in mind; the drum machine is respectably varied beat-wise, alternating between blast beats, traditional rock and roll patterns and a menagerie of other styles, but it's too loud and sounds a bit too cheap; and there are still a few cheesy keyboard sections that I personally think should be scrapped. The changes made to this record that would differentiate it from Winter Psalms, then, are the following:

1. Singing is back. I haven't heard Cesare attempt singing since And Hourglass of Lifetime, and he's definitely improved since then. They're still double-tracked for the most part, but there's less attempts to harmonize every single goddamn word that's said, and they're pretty good at not warbling out of tune this time. However, they still don't feel exactly sincere, not being full of any "oomph" or conviction, and to be honest Cesare's accent is kind of ridiculous. I know that an accent isn't really something one can change, but I think the singing sections would sound better in Italian if he insisted upon employing them in the music at all.

2. The drums are generally faster throughout Please Forgive Me Oh Lord. There's less blasting throughout the entire performance, but when it's employed it's pretty damn fast, consistently staying above 150 beats per minute. Sadly, a lot of the songs take a more rock-like, almost Motörhead-esque approach to their rhythm, of which I can't say I'm really a fan. Cesare's also been making the kick pedal blasts faster... bad idea. Thumpy, synthesized kick pedal + fast blasting + overly loud drum machine = MOTORBOAT BRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBR.

3. The rather random, amelodic tremolo noodling is gone. Thank goodness.

4. The covers are better than they have been on past releases. I've never heard the original version of the Stormlord cover, but the song feels pretty mediocre here, and it's awkwardly thumpy for the songs Animae Capronii has taken a shot at covering so far. The Bathory cover is surprisingly good, though: the atmosphere here is just as cool, if not cooler than the original, and the singing here is a lot better than it is on the originally composed Animae Capronii songs. Yeah, there's a silly BM version of it immediately after the acoustic, faithful-to-the-original version, but the first half of the cover is so good that I'm willing to forgive it.

That's about it, though - aside from those four things, Please Forgive Me Oh Lord is made up of outtakes from Winter Psalms, or vice versa. (Well, in this album's defense, there's that cool, faded Egyptian riff at about 0:58 in "Certainty of an Innocent", and Winter Psalms never had anything that awesome.) I guess if Animae Capronii were to fix the things that they screwed up on this release while keeping the things that were done better on this album, this would be decent. But with their current style, talent, and the equipment available to them, I see the band nearing their highest potential... and unfortunately, it isn't very high.

And yes, there's a cover of Britney Spears's "Born to Make You Happy" here, and yes, I actually think it's kind of good. Sue me.