Rainy Days of October

Venin Noir's debut album, Rainy Days of October, manages to capture beautifully its own message with the homonym first song. That may sound lame to write, but I can assure that you'll know what I'm talking about as soon as you listen to the song. It's sad and depressed, reminding you of those days (!) when you just looked out the window and was completely hopeless. Hopelessness, by the way, is the most present atmosphere in this album.
The second track, 'Naughty Elegy', begins doom-ish , "venin noir-ish", to turn into a thrash/heavy metal and then fall into doom again. This is not the only song that follows this line, though: there's also "Damsel of Grief", which was also written by another band's frontman, Avec Tristesse's Pedro I. Salles.
"Desperanter", is, of course, no less than desperate. I could say, though, that Larissa's voice could have been better used. She is surely one great singer, but maybe, with time, she'll learn that her plain, non-lyrical voice, fits much better in songs such as the one mentioned above.
"Reap the Grand" astonishes mainly because of the keyboards. Also, there's a clear hard rock influence in the guitars, a fact that can only add positively to a band such as Venin Noir. The next song, "Buried Alive", is probably the strongest one in this album. Everything works perfectly, especially the mix between the guitars, Larissa's voice and Pedro Santos' backing vocals.
Now, "A Deeper Gray" is, like the name says, a deep, deep song. As it begins with the acoustic guitar, you manage to expect just what it is: a sad, "tear-prone" tune. The bass lines, are, here, a little exaggerated. They could have been spared, even to maintain what the song really is: an ode to despair.
On to the last one: "Vile Pledge" is probably a song which works great live, because, like many others in this album, it sounds like a song the crowd would sing in ecstasy.
"Rainy Days of October" is definitely worth buying. All the musicians show great potential. It has a lot of "amateur" mistakes (who am I to say they're amateurs, when I am a lay myself...well, anyway), but nothing unexpected for a debut album. These will undoubtedly be overcome with Venin Noir's upcoming album, "In Pieces on the Lunar Soil", to be released later this year via Hellion Records.