Metal Storm logo
The Vision Bleak - Carpathia - A Dramatic Poem review




Bandcamp music player
Reviewer:
8.2

111 users:
8.35
Band: The Vision Bleak
Album: Carpathia - A Dramatic Poem
Release date: August 2005


Disc I
01. The Drama Of The Wicked
02. Secrecies In Darkness
03. Carpathia
04. Dreams In The Witch House
05. Sister Najade (The Tarn By The Firs)
06. The Curse Of Arabia
07. Kutulu!
08. The Charm Is Done

Disc II [limited edition]
01. Metropolis [Live at WGT/Haus Auensee]
02. Horror Of Antarctica [Live at WGT/Haus Auensee]
03. The Grand Devilry [Live at WGT/Haus Auensee]
04. Deathship Symphony [Live at WGT/Haus Auensee]
+ Wolfmoon [video]
+ The Lone Night Rider [video]

Their debut album, "Deathship Has A New Captain", had brought, up to an extent, of course, a new air to the gothic metal scene due to its, in a way, different approach of the gothic aesthetic concerning the metal scene and its outspoken nightmarish atmosphere.

While the rivers of time for 2005 started slowly drying up, Allen B. Konstanz and Ulf Theodor Schwadorf return with their second nightmare bearing the name "Carpathia". Those who adored "Deathship Has A New Captain"for its, let's say, "catchy" sounding approach and hits like "The Night Of The Living Dead", "Wolfmoon", "Metropolis" etc will probably get disappointed. In the contrary, those who loved the album mentioned above for its nightmarish and unearthly atmosphere the next thing they must do is to run to the nearest music store and get "Carpathia" simply because The Vision Bleak with their second full-length release show a mood for a more affected nightmarish aesthetic and approach that surrounds the listener and imprisons him in the depths of an imaginary, yet so alive, Hell.

The piano passages, in perfect harmony with the morbid beauty of the orchestrations, the synthesizer's melodies and the operatic vocals that make their appearance at times, are deeply creative and well-put in the flow of the compositions, giving you the impression that there wouldn't be a better way to fit in them. The guitars unleash some really inspired riffing, lying in the core of darkness where all nightmares are being born, while the rhythm section lends pulse and grove to the compositions, accompanying the expressive, theatric and twisted, at times, vocals of Konstanz that, for one more time, give life to the paranoiac and eerie lyrical themes of the band. Needless to say that the band, compositionally, has matured since their debut album, something positive in any way and the atmosphere's touch is more intense and vivid, yet, more affected and lurking, more? dramatic and sophisticated, if I may say. The production is really good, strengthening the inspired compositions of The Vision Bleak, helping the haunting feeling of their compositions flow in a more intense way.

"Carpathia" flows definitely as one dramatic act with main topic the nightmares. Turn off the lights, light a candle to evoke a dreary atmosphere, fill a glass of scarlet wine and dance demonically with the damned while you drown in a bacchic delirium of dark illusions, somewhere in your very own "Carpathia" losing yourself more and more in "the drama of the wicked"?





Written on 27.11.2005 by "It is myself I have never met, whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind."


Comments

Comments: 1   Visited by: 54 users
26.12.2008 - 23:39
Njord
njord
Altough an old review, it was nice to read and with a great description of the music. This album has everything to be a reference to avant-garde/gothic metal lovers, but somehow the band doesn't have the strengh to go into the next degree. If you are looking for something more joyful but in the same genre than Moonspell, this is it.
Loading...

Hits total: 4134 | This month: 8