Rain

Although the name of the project is hilariously generic, "Sadness" deserves to make this word his own. It's truly sadness itself in audio form. A very hard-working one man band, he has managed to release 16 full lengths, 6 splits and 4 EPs in just six years, and they all slap. "Rain" is one of the best releases, if not the best, and is some of those most ethereal and heart-breakingly melancholy music you can find. Sadness is definitely its own experience all by itself, whether or not you find atmospheric/depressive/post black metal appealing. It makes bands like Katatonia sound like KC And The Sunshine Band. The powerful vibes of raw feeling on this record are like the psychological equivalent of what it must feel like to be the very last human being alive on Earth while aimlessly walking through a blizzard with your nerves exposed by a lack of skin.

No matter what you're doing while spinning the record, the piano interludes are so jaw-droppingly beautiful that they seem to make time itself stop as it waits for you to absorb the tragic despair that they express. (Seriously Damián, you okay bruh?) Especially on the first track "Lay," a particularly floaty song with blasting that resembles a rainstorm more than anything else, and the slightly thicker and guitar heavy "Pure Dream." Whereas blast beats are normally used to add frantic and mean mugging energy to a song, Sadness has somehow managed to make an exclusively aggressive tempo trick very gentle, comforting and lethargic, without sacrificing any intensity. It's aggressively sad music to say the very least. Every single note and every single sound is deliberate and not expendable whatsoever, and has a way of building and releasing tension at the perfect moments. The title track "Rain" also has a compelling piano piece consuming most of its duration with slow, sporadic lead guitar softly wailing over it, seguing perfectly into the last track that starts with an acoustic reprise of the opening piano melody and breaks into some of the loudest guitar sections on the album, dripping with that juicy reverb that the album wouldn't be the same without, the A1 steak sauce that brings out the flavor and then some. I'm not sure exactly why, but something about reprising a previously used melody on a closing track has a lot of weight to it, especially if its the most anthemic and memorable melody on the record.

The way these tracks were produced is just as ingenious as the compositions themselves. Creating a very deep sound world, the harsh vocals and sometimes the drums sound very distant and reverb heavy while still being just as audible as the rest of the mix. You're likely to find a new element you didn't notice before on every listen. This is the atmoblack album I've been looking for since I started exploring the genre, and I'd be surprised if you didn't like it if atmoblack is your thing. It's also something that would be interesting for anyone who digs one man projects. It's not very easy making good records without anyone else playing part, but some people simply possess the artistic license to do so, such as Blut Aus Nord for instance. It's pretty fucking sweet that projects like this exist, because the majority of one man projects have evidence all over it that only one person created it using nothing but an echo chamber of interchangeable ideas in their mind. I look forward to seeing Sadness create more albums like a Pez dispenser, because he obviously has the drive and talent to spit out another slew of masterpieces. And if one of them ends up topping Rain, I'll gladly throw my last dollar at it as soon I'm done shitting bricks.