Visions and a Giant of Nebula

Inspired by the French post-black metal / shoegazer band Alcest, whose style the music so strongly follows, this debut album from Lament, a one-man post-BM project based in Bekasi near Jakarta, West Java, Indonesia, is a very polished work in the post-BM / blackgaze / shoegaze genre. Lament is helmed by Ryo aka Januaryo Hardy who plays in a fair few bands in the underground metal movement in Indonesia and runs other solo metal projects and a small label called Twilight Rain. Ryo also co-engineered the album and did the mixing and mastering in his own studio, Insidious Soundlab. Considerable effort has certainly gone into this record by just the one musician composing all the songs and playing all instruments, and then doing most of the post-production work on top. A theme of innocence lost, having to deal with the difficulties and problems life brings, and fighting through fear, desperation and depression dominates the recording.

"Visions ..." certainly starts off gracefully with "Hellion" featuring a good balance of sunny pop tunes, a background choir of clean-toned voices filled with longing, trilling acoustic guitar lines and walls of harsher yet melodic black metal guitar noise with occasional biting BM vocals. "Frightened" is a little bit harder and tougher but continues with the mix of dark indie-pop, clean though rather bland singing and bursts of noisy BM tremolo guitar shower and raspy declamations. At times when the music is reliant on melody and riffing, it can be very powerful and starts taking on an epic feel. Majesty really starts to build up on "Wandering" though the clean vocals, thin and lacking in feeling, both lead and support, are a definite brake on the music. At this point, the thing that hits listeners about the vocals is that the croaky BM voices have much more emotion and life than the clean singing does.

After an ambient instrumental "Zephyr" featuring acoustic guitar and a cold liquid atmospheric background setting that may well be the best track on the album, we continue with more of what went before: more poppy songs with some good tunes, a sunny, hopeful attitude, the thin singing later followed by a more impassioned BM vocal, and showers of grinding tremolo guitar noise. "Unease" closes off the album with lyrics expressing uncertainty about the journey ahead, even as the music appears triumphant and resolute in parts. This song sums up what's gone before in the album and highlights much of what is good and what frankly is also bad about it: dark power pop with strong riffs and melodies is marred by weak singing throughout; and in its last moments, generic and bland triumphal music that contradict the misgivings and fears in the lyrics.

For all the care and effort Ryo put into this lavish work, I wish it had been less Alcest worship, especially in the vocals, and more of what Ryo could have brought from work he has done with other solo and group projects. Most of the singing apes the Alcest style but lacks the emotion that Neige brings to his clean singing. There's potential for Lament here to be a tougher, harsher and more powerful and corrosive band in this style of post-BM / blackgaze music, without having to add sentimental pop elements that diminish and damage the music and ultimately turn it into saccharine syrup.