Funeral Rain Press Corps

Genre: Black Metal, Depressive Black Metal, Post Metal, Post Rock, Shoegaze
Labels: ATMF

The crushing beauty of shoegaze and post metal combined with the savagery of raw black metal make up the first track off of Everything, “Forever Never Fails”. It’s like a year of pure urgent emotion turned into a five minute and thirteen second long song. And it alone is worth the money for the album.

“Formlessness” comes next, with very My Bloody Valentine sounding music and Sargeist/Craft vocals. If this doesn’t get your heart moving, you’re probably dead. It differs from “Forever Never Fails” primarily in the bass work, lending it less of an urgency and more of a solemnity. Oddly enough, it is also exactly five minutes and thirteen seconds long.

“Absence of Contrast” contrasts nicely with “Formlessness”, it’s piano lines and bass setting off a nice throb to inhale opium to. “We All Fall” takes a more post rock feel despite the savagery of the vocals. Spoken words make an appearance as well, an interesting and nice change up. “Nothing/Everything” takes a more depressive black metal via shoegaze feel. The keyboard work here is exemplary, taking more of a lead then a coloring overlay.

“Her Dress as a Poem, Her Death as the Night” flows with a deep melancholy, deep bass carrying you through an ocean of keys with waves of guitar crushing you down, under. This is utter depression in musical form, and it’s beautiful and cathartic, another song worthy of being worth the album’s price. I just wish it was longer.

“I am the Veil” would feel like an indie rock song if it weren’t for the key drones in the back and the blackened vocals. The keys come forward as pianos and make it even less indie rock and more post metal/depressive black. “Cold Spring” is totally the opposite, going straight for post metal/shoegaze from the start, a heart stopping vocal performance that upon repeat listens continually drags you through varying emotional states.

Despite “Cold Spring” being a great song, the final track “Rain” trumps it easily, and is one of the best songs on the album. Guitar feedback and keyboards blend over a slower, higher pitched bass line, with sung vocals making a brief appearance. The song as a whole has a feeling of a triumphant ending, which it is for the album. Wonderful.

As a whole, Everything is a gorgeous album that takes the listener through many parts of the emotional spectrum. There is joy here, there is sadness, there is anger, and there is even love. But it all takes on a melancholic darkness that is hard to shake off after listening. I highly recommend getting this, especially if you’re a fan of My Bloody Valentine, Autumn’s Grey Solace, Jesu, Darkthrone, The Cure, or Cry.

10 out of 10.

An Autumn for Crippled Children on Facebook.

Genre: Black Metal, Gothic, Progressive, Thrash, Doom, Your Mom
Label: Independent (But honestly shouldn‘t be)

Yet another entry in the Funeral Rain archives that start out with “I honestly didn’t know what to expect from _____…” But seriously, the ghastly cover art for Hour Of The Night Gaunts and the rude, crude and full of ‘tude approach that the lads in Vintage Flesh have on their Facebook page immediately paint them out to be wildcards capable of anything under the metal sun!

I’ve never been so dead on before. Vintage Flesh is (er… was, as they are now known as Inverticrux) capable of ANYTHING and they show it on their very last album! And while I was scanning the ‘net for intel on these guys, I managed to find nothing but iffy reviews about their “played out” and “why bother” style of metal… but what the hell do “they” know? Hour Of The Night Gaunts is a heavily complex album, full of material that any true metalhead/gothic whatsit should be drooling over by the first note!

Vocalist RayPissed chooses to go down a path that you don’t hear very often in metal of this caliber: falsetto. I’m sure a lot of you are thinking King Diamond right about now, but you’re way off. It’s more of a blackened shriek mixed with a woman in a 60’s sitcom who just saw a mouse. Now those of you who thought King Diamond are all frowny faced. But guess what? Fuck you! I like this style. It’s unique and plays off the rest of the band very well. But Mr. Pissed also manages to throw in these over the top, dramatic semi-soliloquies that HAUNT as well as entertain. Oh, and there’s some excellent growls thrown in there from time to time, generally as an accent or background vocal. At any rate, the vocals are top notch!

I’m not really sure how to continue this review since all I’m going to do is verbally jizz all over the tight musicianship and the virtual ghostly opera that goes down from begin to end. The twelve car pile up of genre melding can go from doomy funeral dirges that give way to scorching black metal riffs that make room for pseudo-power metal melodies in just one track! Substance. This album has it.

Overall: Hour Of The Night Gaunts is a fun, haunting ride from Follow Me To The Grave to While I Wandered Away With Death. If you don’t get what these spooky cats are laying down, then kindly remove the stick from betwixt yer buttocks so that I might replace it with my boot!

10/10

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