Yesterday's Ghosts

I mostly review black metal albums or at least something that has to do with that genre such as death metal, avant-garde and sometimes some classic heavy metal from the years of old (aka the 70's and the 80's). As you probably understand though that doesn't mean that I do not listen to almost every metal sub-genre as well. And of course who would say no to some good old gothic and melodic doom metal in the ways of Anathema ? Not me for sure! So this time I'm reviewing something in that vein. The surprisingly short debut of These Winds Are Not Hope a band originating from Macedonia, formed by their guitarist (and drum programmer and keyboardist) Boban Despotovski.

Did I sound too enthusiastic about it? Well, I certainly hope not because the album itself has an abundance of weak spots and blank spaces that need to be filled as soon as possible if this band wants to gain a larger audience and maybe reach a higher status. Starting with the instrumentation and more precisely the guitars, I can't find something negative on the way they are produced because it fits the style a lot. Their sound is thick and full and with the use of reverb they sound even more lively. The riffs however are another story... All of the tracks follow the same motif and the moments in which the guitars are actually refreshing are quite few. The use of clean guitars in the two closing tracks doesn't do that much of a favor to the album either. Of course that does not mean that there are no good riffs in this album at all, however all the good stuff that appeared for some time in the first song, will appear again in all the other tracks in the form of a slight variation. There are many albums which I hail for the use of motifs and variations on certain themes (Throane's debut for example) but here it doesn't work for the better, unfortunately.

If anything, however, the true weak spot here is the rhythm section. The bass is not badly produced or totally useless, but it lacks that thing that I love to hear in bass performances in any kind of album. What's that you ask? Initiative of course! I like to hear bass leads and there are not much here, if there is any. The few extra notes added by the bassist Miroslav Denkovski are not enough to make this stand out. But at least the bass is played by a human as opposed to the drums which are programmed. I have nothing against programmed drums when their use is necessary, for instance when the drum performance is extremely complex or when a project is very personal and the one single artist behind it decides to do it all alone (e.g. Spectral Lore). However, the drum patterns here are not that complex and the band itself is a trio. Not only that but their singer is Canadian. So couldn't you get a guy to play these on record? After all, it is said that These Winds Are Not Hope are a studio band...

Since I mentioned the singer, his work is very good. That's how I imagine a good old school doom metal vocal performance to sound like. There might be a slight hard rock feeling to them but I'm okay with it. You must be aware that this album is quite radio friendly since there are no lengthy tracks or weird time signatures here... The lyrics written by Boban as well do not strike me as unique but they are true to the genre's usual lyrical themes.

All being said, Yesterday's Ghosts is not an awful album, just not my cup of tea. Don't expect it to sound like Type O Negative or Pallbearer if you are into doom. Expect the gothic approach that the band uses and who knows? Maybe you'll like it. After all with only 25 minutes length, you would not lose that much time to just check it out once! These Winds Are Not Hope have a long way to go but it's not like they are totally hopeless. They can evolve into a prominent name if they put the amount of time and effort that is needed into their work. Still though, you should give it a try yourself.

Favorite tracks: 'Beyond Repair'.

50/100.