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The Living Fields - The Miseries Never Cease review



Reviewer:
8.0
Band: The Living Fields
Album: The Miseries Never Cease
Release date: 2004


01. A Leveling Spirit
02. The Miseries Never Cease
03. Dim Prospects
04. Empires Fall

The next step for Doom Metal?

Definitively this is one of the best surprises of the year so far, usually I don't put much effort on listening Demos because the technical difficulties, and the majority of them uhmm... suck. But not this one, this one is special, this Demo truly shocked me from the moment I started listening to it.

The Living Fields are a two-piece band from Chicago, not enough real Metal from the States lately? Keep reading. These guys play an hybrid kind of Doom Metal, including borrowed elements from other genres such as Thrash Metal, and some Black Metal also. The whole atmosphere of the band is quite Epic at times, although you'll find yourself immerse in melancholic passages and headbanging sections as well.

The band uses, instead of a keyboard, a violin and even a flute! This adds a lot of atmosphere to their music. As for the vocals, the band uses a blackened shouts/shrieks, clean, dejected voice and even some screaaams á la Kind Diamond.

The Demo, only contains 4 songs, "A Leveling Spirit" begins things with an epic touch to the songwriting, paired with some slower parts (with some violins and interludes), the title track "The Miseries Never Cease" is another fine example of what this band is capable of, the song begins quite moody with some clean singing and then slowly builds up to become this amazing song. "Dim Prospects" is a dark instrumental song, containing quotes from Noam Chomsky and Ward Churchill, talking about social issues. Last track is much more upbeat than the others, and the violin just goes crazy in here, amazing song.

What's more incredible about this band is that this Demo was released back in 2004 and still these guys haven't inked a record deal, it could be a nice change to have some talented musicians releasing material instead of all the crap the big labels are shoving down our throats these days.

Written by Undercraft | 25.01.2006





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