The sweetest love from you offered
forced to run so cold
where once true love flowed
regretful tears of sorrow now
flow freely down and fall to the ground
(from "Broken Bonds")
Ian Arkley (former frontman of Seventh Angel) is back with more doom and gloom metal. Some say this album sounds just like Paramaecium's A Time to Mourn, which Arkley also played guitars and wrote most of the songs for. I haven't heard that album, but if that's true then he needs to make sure he varies his projects next time. Paramaecium and Ashen Mortality are the two most well-known doom bands in Christian metal, and it makes no sense for them to sound identical.
Anyway, Your Caress is in many ways an improvement over Ashen Mortality's debut, Sleepless Remorse. The arrangements are stronger, the mix heavier, the tempo a bit faster. If you've got a good stereo, the guitars pack quite a snarling punch. Still with that same mournfully rough Seventh Angel tone. Arkley has always used slightly awkward transitions, but the unsettling starts and stops are put to better use here than in the past.
Arkley goes for more clean gothic vocals than before, but the accessible death growl is still there, making for good contrast. The spooky organ plays a lesser (nonexistent) role than on Sleepless Remorse, which keeps the songs from haunting like a few on the debut did. Solitary acoustic passages, female vocals, and melodic lead guitar breaks help, but they aren't featured enough for my tastes, and they aren't tied in smoothly enough when they are.
The lyrics are obsessed with our faithlessness and the darkness of fallen man, but the powerful and up-tempo "Through the Vale" ends the album with hope:
When you see the journey's end and feel the
Strength to run again
All the pain is just a memory
Look & see how far we've come,
Draw near to me
The battle's won
Finally we can be free.
(from "Through the Vale")
4 tocks
Other coverage for this album
HM Magazine #76Reviewed by Doug Van PeltThose who know this band know what to expect - big, down-tuned gloomy guitars with growly vocals. The uninitiated will delight to know that former Seventh Angel vocalist, Ian Arkley, has been fronting this outfit for a few years. Quite a departure from his thrash days, he hasn't left the heavy out of metal here. Bands like this certainly benefit from the increased interest in the goth-hybrid…Art for the Ears 1999Reviewed by Marco PovervestIt was in September 1994 that I saw this band live in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Then the band had two demos out. I enjoyed the concert very much because of the great atmosphere they created by their doomy deathmetal which they varied with English folk elements and medieval type of sounds. Then I didn't buy one of their demos because I hoped they would release a CD soon. I regretted that decision…Similar sounding releases
2005This MomentFinding A Voice In The Dark
1998OpethMy Arms, Your Hearse
1997PensiveThe Subtlety of Silence
2002Anah AeviaRealize You're Dead
1994MortificationBlood World
2005IlluminandiThe Beginning...
