A Dream Of Poe - An Infinity Emerged (CD) Digipak

gothic doom death, Solitude Productions, Solitude Productions
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Digi CD
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SP. 110-15D xs
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Новый альбом португальской группы A Dream Of Poe представляет развитие музыкального стиля группы от gothic doom metal, через мелодичный doom death к традиционной форме doom metal, с его чёткими торжественными рифами, чистым трагическим вокалом и эпичными партиями соло-гитары. «An Infinity Emerged» - это продолжение предыдущего альбома «The Mirror of Deliverance». Звучание альбома стало более плотным по сравнению с предыдущими работами и достигло нового уровня в плане качества записи, что позволяет лучше прочувствовать работу музыкантов и погрузится в атмосферу альбома. Пять длинных треков, со средней продолжительностью звучания в 11 минут, отражают эволюцию личности, осознавшей жестокость реальности по сравнению с теоретическими измышлениями. Символически, альбом представляет собой процесс разрушения, как начальный этап процесса обновления (что соответствует символизму карты «Башня» из колоды Таро), поэтому темы смерти, убийства, и постоянное обращение к воде как символу изменения являются основными для «An Infinity Emerged». Партии клавишных на альбоме исполнил Костас Панайоту (Pantheist, Clouds, Wijlen Wij).

Первые 100 экземпляров альбома изданы в виде строго лимитированного диджипака!

Треклист:
1 Egregore 11:20
2 Lethargus 11:17
3 The Isle Of Cinder 10:19
4 Lighthouses For The Dead (The Isle Of Cinder II) 10:27
5 Macula 11:30

Артист:
A Dream Of Poe
Страна артиста:
Portugal
Год альбома:
2015
Название:
An Infinity Emerged
Стиль:
gothic doom death
Формат:
Compact Disk
Тип:
CD
Упаковка:
Digipak
Лейбл:
Solitude Productions
Кат. номер:
SP. 110-15D
Год издания:
2015
Штрих-код:
4 627080 610934
Страна-производитель:
Russia
Review
Shelter of Doom
8/10
14.12.2016

The noise of the surf, the melancholic sounds of an acoustic guitar, accompanied by the soulful voice of vocalist envelop you from the first seconds, and now you are somewhere on the Atlantic coast, observing the leisurely flow of the waves, listening to the sounds of the wind which brings simultaneously freshness and coolness, and looking at the grand mountains …
I’ve never been to Iberian Peninsula but by virtue of the music I found myself there. Just for one hour. On this new atmospheric, melodic, and yet not devoid of powerful heavy sound record, A Dream Of Poe pulls off all the ingredients that you’d expect.
Particular attention should be paid to the singer of the band – Kaivan Saraei, whose work is actually titanic. His vocals are filled with permeating melody that penetrates the soul with a touch of sadness and sorrow, like if he looks you in the heart and subjugates you with his voice.
The lion’s share is just clean tenor singing, whilst growling appears only in moments of apotheosis, bringing a state of despair to the high water mark. And I was hooked by this delivery. Can’t help it – I do love clean vocals, excessively sometimes. If you’re tired of hearing constant extreme vocals then “A Waltz For Apophenia” will be a delight for your ears.
As the ode to the man behind the microphone is finished, I turn to the instrumental part of the band’s third full-length album. Everything here is shipshape, fulfilled with massive riffs, excellent melodic passages, gentle acoustic arpeggios and mystical keyboards tones. It’s a nice change of pace, and the music is no less compelling because of it.
Yet most of compositions are performed in mid-tempo although sometimes there are explosive dynamic moments. The music on this album associates with calm tidal waters of the mighty ocean, which does not hesitate to show its strength. And when it happens – double-bass drumming and sixteenth notes enter the scene. Everything is perfectly balanced.
“A Waltz For Apophenia” is one of those albums that you can speak too long about, describing all the charms and disadvantages, but now it’s up to listeners to decide if they appreciate this original creation.
And one more thing – it’s better to be alone while you give it a listen! Don’t let anyone to disturb you with idle talking. Also you can’t use it as the background music for whatever purpose. It is necessary to immerse yourself fully and let the music overwhelm you. This is the only option for one to be completely imbued with unearthly sound of “A Waltz…”
P.S. A little bit of a fly in the ointment: with the fourth song I noticed that the clean vocals parts are starting to become monotonous, due to the fact that the singer clearly does not use his full tessitura potential and sings only in one octave. It would be nice to hear more high or low notes from him.

Author: Max Molodtsov
Review
No Clean Singing
05.12.2016

With the new album A Waltz for Apophenia, A Dream of Poe concludes a conceptual trilogy that began with The Mirror of Deliverance (2011) and continued with An Infinity Emerged (2015). The new album is being released today by Solitude Productions, and to help spread the word we bring you the premiere of all 8 new songs.

On the new album, composer and instrumentalist Miguel Santos (a native of The Azores islands but now living in Edinburgh, Scotland) is again joined by lyricist Paulo Pacheco and clean vocalist Kaivan Saraei, with both Santos and João Melo voicing the harsh growls.

The album also includes guest appearances by such artists as António Neves (In Peccatum), Nelson Félix (Spank Lord, Sanctus Nosferatu), Paulo Bettencourt (Morbid Death), and Kostas Panagiotou (Pantheist).

The album’s opening track and first single, “La Mort Blanche”, is the kind of somber ballad that could appeal broadly to fans beyond the borders of metal, even with its big groaning riffs and vibrating bass tones. Kaivan Saraei has solo vocal duties on the track, and his delivery is a highlight, along with one of this album’s best guitar solos (though the soloing through the album is another one of its highlights).

But the song is perhaps less representative of the rest of the album than any of the others you might choose to hear. You get a more compelling vision of the album’s style in the song that follows it, “Abyss, My Lover”, with its gloomy, gothic aura, its slow, monolithic riffs, and the combining of Saraei’s clean vocals with jagged, agonized howls. The mood of the song is one of abject personal grief, combined with the sweep and catastrophic power of something like buildings collapsing in slow motion into city-sized sinkholes.

Atmospherically, the album persistently plumbs the depths of misery and despair, with heart-aching melodies and a low-end sound that’s as heavy as anvils. The songs are often slow and soul-crushing, but the music is also beautifully embroidered with Saraei’s soulful voice and that array of vibrant guitar solos mentioned earlier.

The band also pick their moments to supercharge the wrenching intensity of the music, with both Saraei’s vocals and the riffs rising in range, anchored by bursts of double-bass thunder and joined by hair-raising howls of bestial agony.

The album’s centerpiece, and its longest track at nearly 11 minutes, is “A Valsa Dos Corvos”. It powerfully displays all the dimensions of the music on “A Waltz For Apophenia”, including both its stricken, heart-aching ambience and beautiful clean vocals and its capacity to deliver passages of harsh power, fueled by brutish jabbing chugs, a fiery guitar solo, and strident piano chords.

The arrival of this album is well-timed to coincide with the descending gloom and chill of winter. For fans of heavy melodic doom in virtually all of its manifestations, this is an album that should prove richly rewarding.

A Waltz For Apophenia is being released on CD with a 12 page-booklet and artwork by Augusto Peixoto (Irondoomdesign), and it’s available digitally as well. Order info is available through the links below. Also below, in addition to our full album stream, you’ll find the band’s new lyric video for the opening track “La Mort Blanche”

Author: Islander
Review
Gorger’s Metal
3-/5
10.01.2017

Portuguese A Dream Of Poe, a duo with stable line-up since 2005, recently released their third album, and thereby concluding a trilogy concept of finding oneself and overcoming challenges. Or something like that.
On The Mirror Of Deliverance (2011) and An Infinity Emerged (2015), our protagonist struggled with himself and his mental blockades or inner demons. Time has come to face the outside world. I missed out on the debut, and didn’t have time for the second album. If I’m going to take A Waltz for Apophenia as an indicator, I might not have missed out on a whole lot.

As expected from Solitude Productions it’s serene and fair melancholy that meets the listener. A Waltz For Apophenia still ain’t among the most grief-stricken albums from the label. The music is muted and heavy death/doom is replaced with atmospheric death/doom, so to speak.

A bit like Lacrimas Profundere taking a more poppy and smooth trail in the vein of The Gathering, Orphanage and various Norwegian Gothic metal band once upon a time, A Dream Of Poe (at least this time around) is very round in the edges. We find a lot of gentle and sensitive clean vocals, and the music is full of optimistic undertones of hope. The songs are pretty good, but also characterized by the contemporary curse; Low memorability. I’ll admit to not having spent quite enough time with the album to be entirely cocksure considering its growing potential, but I feel that the material largely leaves the other ear without leaving much of a footprint. The album unfortunately don’t leave the greatest appetite for more either. After repeated spins in a row, these 62 minutes in stead gradually became a test of patience, but after letting the album rest for a few days, it once again sounds a bit fresh.

In addition to being in excess gentle, the music isn’t abnormally pretty. Properties like “beautiful and comfortable” are practically the norm within qualitative death/doom in all its facets, but A Dream Of Poe’s third full works stand out only by not being quite as strong in this respect. It’s of course possible that you will disagree, but to me, A Waltz For Apophenia sadly becomes a fairly grey soul in the bustling crowd.

But don’t misunderstand. The music might not appeal profoundly to yours truly, but it’s still nice, and performed with emotions. Of course there are sequences that provide a little extra, and when growls are at times applied, it feels extra good. A somewhat rawer section from the middle of A Valsa dos Corvos, along with the last song World’s End Close, has a nerve that really appeal. In the latter song I even pick up a scent of Kurt Cobain in the sorrowful clean-vocals. (Hear from 3:20.)
If you have no problems with a mild, gentle and rather smooth sound, this may very well be melancholy up your alley.
Review
Pavillon 666
8.5/10
09.01.2017

Il n’y a pas que MOONSPELL qui nous vienne du PORTUGAL, il y aussi A DREAM OF POE mais dans un registre nettement plus doom. Tout a commencé en 2005 comme un projet solo du producteur et musicien Miguel SANTOS. La première démo voit le jour en octobre 2006 sous le nom « Delirium Tremens ». Très vite Paulo PACHEO se joint au projet en tant que parolier. Le travail de celles-ci tourne autours de l’écrivain Allan POE alors sans doute fallait il un expert pour traiter le sujet. Ensuite, afin de donner quelques concert Miguel SANTOS s’entoure de musiciens de session car en studio, c’est en solo qu’il opère derrière chaque instrument. Après un live et deux EPs entre 2008 et 2010, « The Mirror Of Deliverance » est le premier album du groupe à sortir en 2011. Il faut ensuite attendre 2015 pour un deuxième LP, « An Infinity Emerged » et 2016 pour un nouvel album live, « The Deliverance ». 2016 étant vraisemblablement une bonne année pour ce projet, un autre album voit le jour, « A Waltz For Apophenia ».

Comme Miguel SANTOS est aussi producteur, je ne trahis pas un secret en vous indiquant que la production de ce disque est tout à fait à la hauteur. Pas de grosses prises de risque ou de surprises dans ce domaine. Le travail est impeccable. Il vaut mieux car ces huit titres le méritent largement. L’écoute débute avec un titre remarquable, « La Mort Blanche ». On rentre doucement dans cet univers avec quelques accords acoustiques et un chant murmuré. Le résultat est prenant. On aurait pu en rester là mais il s’agit d’un groupe électrique. Le changement d’ambiance sonore n’enlève rien à la profondeur du morceau. On enchaîne avec « Abyss, My Lover » qui confirme toute la profondeur du projet. Le chant apporte d’ailleurs beaucoup à cette profondeur en laissant de côté le guttural pour laisser libre court à un chant clair bien senti. On continue tranquillement cette écoute avec un autre titre doom dans la tradition, « Pareidolia ». « Vulto II (The Apostheosis Of Delivrance) » introduit quant à lui des figures rythmiques plus saccadées tout en gardant bien entendu toute la lourdeur implacable du style. L’ambiance et les ingrédients sont bien posés et l’écoute se poursuit avec « Abyss, The Destroyer », « The Voice of Fire » et les 10 minutes de « A Valsa Dos Corvos ». Dans ce dernier titre, la deuxième partie du morceau se prête à un peu plus de diversité avec des riffs plus appuyés et plus rapides avant de revenir à des choses plus traditionnelles. « World’s End Close » se fait quant à lui plus guttural dans ses premiers instants puis de façon ponctuelle à travers le morceau.

Cet album mérite une écoute attentive car le travail est plutôt remarquable. Certes nous sommes dans un style bien défini mais cela n’empêche pas ci et là quelques embardées plutôt bienvenues. A recommander à tous les fans de doom.

Author: Chart
Review
Lords of Metal
7.9/10

A Dream Of Poe originally operated out of the Azores and subsequently out of London and currently out of Edinburgh. Just like on previous albums ‘A Waltz For Apophenia’ is characterized by really well thought out melodic death doom which has got a tiny bit of gothic to it. The guitar melodies stick after hearing them just once and the clean vocals have something sad and almost whiny over them. The sparingly used growls also manage to convince. At times it all reminds me of old My Dying Bride with a smidgeon of Paradise Lost and Celestial Season thrown in. A fine death domo album for aficionados.

Author: Marcel H.
Review
Doom-Metal.com
8/10
11.08.2016

Hailing from Ponta Delgada in the Portuguese Azores, but residing in Edinburgh, a city steeped in gothic literary history, A Dream of Poe return with their second full-length album. Essentially a solo project for Miguel Santos, with lyrics provided by Paolo Pacheco, A Dream of Poe deliver, as their names suggests, a cerebral, literary Gothic Doom experience. With every track clocking in at a lengthy ten minutes or more, there is plenty of time for each track to tell a musical and lyrical story. Of course, length is no guarantee of quality (stop sniggering at the back), and an attempt at a Raven could easily become a lowly sparrow, aimlessly twittering long after outstaying its welcome, but thankfully that's not the case with 'An Infinity Emerged'.

'Egregore' kicks off the album with a slow, brooding introduction that builds a sense of Gothic menace until a crushing Doom riff kicks in at around the three-minute mark. Sorrowful vocals and eerie, discordant keyboards compliment some disturbing subject matter as Kaivan Saraei wails "Into his chest she carves her hate/she's the mother of dirt and sister of rape". Tension continues to build until a blistering guitar solo is unleashed towards the end of the track and 'Egregore' reaches its conclusion. So far so good; just like one of Poe's tales or poems, this is a slow burner, a creeping threat of cumulative Doom horror; lyrics and music working in synergy to tell a story.

Second track, 'Lethargus' ratchets up the Doom a notch with a Sludgy riff and tortured vocals. Again, storytelling is key here as a classic Gothic tale of rejection, anger and bloody retribution unfolds. An interesting lyrical technique is used as the protagonist argues with his own conscience, with alternate verses representing "the servant" and "anger" in an internal struggle reminiscent of Smeagol's struggle to convince his own conscience not to murder his tricksy wooly-footed masters in The Two Towers. An epic solo around the half way mark brings depth and variety, before a faster, more intense Doom riff sees the track to its bloody conclusion. Once more music and lyrics work in synergy to tell a Gothic tale which is perhaps slightly let down by a vocal tone that remains standard throughout. Perhaps more growl, or at least a bit more venom, as the story builds in intensity would have added to the effect.

Each of the five tracks tells an epic, usually disturbing Gothic tale, with some excellent musicianship on show, particularly from guitarist Nelson Felix, whose solos are immense. For the most part, all of these lengthy pieces are free from filler and deliver a thumping slice of literary Doom. Arguably, 'The Isle of Cinder' tale, which plays out over two tracks, and, clocks in at well over twenty minutes combined, is over-egging the pudding somewhat, but not to the extent that it detracts from the overall success of 'An Infinity Emerged'. There is a lot going on on this record, both musically and lyrically, and it's hard not be affected by its accomplished musicianship and the tortured characters it portrays; the marooned, the murderous, the vengeful lovers and the lycanthropes all. It's an album that is dense and not immediately accessible, much like the work of Edgar Allan Poe himself, but slowly draws you into its bleak Gothic landscape.

Author: Nick Harkins
Review
The Pit of the Damned
6.5/10
08.07.2016

Devo essere sincero: non ho ancora completamente digerito i 55 minuti di questo secondo full-length partorito dal progetto musicale A Dream Of Poe; non ho saputo probabilmente cogliere appieno quel fattore che solitamente rende l'ascolto un ascolto consapevole. Credo tuttavia che ciò non derivi solamente da un mio deficit, ma anche dall'astrusità ricercata dalla band di origini portoghesi. Ciò che si avverte subito sono le ritmiche doom: lentissime, inesorabili e strazianti, che finiscono per perdere il loro carattere e (che sia voluto o meno) disorientare il fruitore, a causa dell'eccessivo minutaggio di ogni brano che le protrae all'infinito, spesso senza avvertibili variazioni che ne alleggeriscano l'ascolto. Le liriche oscure e contorte, ispirate dalla letteratura di Poe, restano rinchiuse come in un labirinto, in cui l'ascoltatore si smarrisce, trascinato dalla stordente spirale sonora che lo avvolge. L'atmosfera cupa ed esoterica, è poi completata dalle chitarre, che salvo pochi passaggi melodici, seguono quasi sempre le linee ritmiche, rafforzando ancora di più il senso di occlusione e cieco smarrimento, proprio come il prigioniero del 'Pozzo di Poe'. Al termine dell'ascolto bisogna senza dubbio riconoscere le capacità compositive del polistrumentista Miguel Santos, la “mente” del gruppo lusitano, che pecca forse per eccessiva artificiosità in un contesto del genere, finendo per generare la labirintica spirale sonora di 'An Infinity Emerged'.

Author: Emanuele 'Norum' Marchesoni
Review
Atmosfear #17
5/10

Второй альбом португальцев скорее больше расстраивает, чем радует. Даже не знаю в чём тут дело. То ли в невыразительном вокалисте, то ли в скучной музыкальной составляющей. Хотя нет, наверное, всё-таки дело в унылых чистых вокальных партиях, которые, по сути, вызывают тут только раздражение. По музыке тоже ничего нового, скучный и ничем не примечательный gothic/doom metal. И даже гостевое участие Костаса Панайоту (PANTHEIST), который тут исполнил партии клавишных, не спасает этот релиз от тотального провала. Удивляюсь, как ещё издающий лейбл издал этот диск аж в формате Digipack.

Author: CS
Review
Metalhead.it
7.5/10
29.02.2016

Quando una band è portoghese, nella sua musica c’è sempre un senso di nostalgia e decadenza: sarà la vista dello sconfinato Oceano Atlantico, sarà essere ai confini dell’Europa, sarà quello che volete… ma i Dream of Poe non vengono meno a questa regola. Secondo full-lenght per questa formazione (in realtà un duo) che propone un gothic/doom pieno di grazia e malinconia, mai troppo marcio o devastato, con qualche passaggio di art metal. “Egregore” è una marcia funebre pesante, ma non macabra: il cantato di Miguel Santos è in clean e il brano, che supera gli undici minuti, ha comunque dei momenti elettrici potenti nonché un ritornello cantabile. “Lethargus” procede per altri undici minuti praticamente sullo stesso tema: ma diamine, siamo in un disco gothic/doom, questo è un bene! E infatti la canzone riesce, almeno a tratti, a creare quell’effetto trance che vorrebbe suscitare nell’ascoltatore fin dal titolo. Finisce però per suonare troppo statica “The Isle of Cinder”, che comunque supera i dieci minuti (come, del resto, tutti i brani in scaletta); “Lighthouses for the Dead” butta nel mucchio cori e controcori vagamente inquietanti, che incupiscono l’atmosfera. Ci troviamo anche di fronte al brano più ispirato e, a suo modo, drammatico. Si cambia leggermente registro con la conclusiva “Macula”, meno legata agli stilemi del doom inglese e più vicina a un gothic snello, quasi confinante, come si diceva, con l’art metal, vicino alle sonorità degli ultimi Katatonia o dei Paragon of Beauty. Nel complesso, nonostante il calo di tono evidenziato, un ottimo album.

Author: René Urkus
Review
Pavillon 666
6.5/10
30.05.2016

Le Portugal, charmant pays plus connu pour son climat, ses maçons et Linda de Suza que pour ces groupes de metal. Bon, il ne faut pas exagérer, il y a quand même Moonspell pour redorer le blason du pays, mais c’est pourtant de ces contrées que provient le groupe A Dream of Poe, qui comme son nom l’indique s’inspire énormément des écrits du grand écrivain américain et du romantisme pour les paroles de leurs albums. Enfin, si on peut dire puisque le cœur de la formation n’est autre qu’un homme, Miguel Santos, qui s’occupe de tout, les autres membres ne l’accompagnant que pour les sessions live.

Avec une formation dans le courant de l’année 2005, on peut dire qu’A dream of Poe n’est plus un groupe de débutant, avec plusieurs Ep à leur actif, ainsi qu’un premier album : The Mirror of delivrance, sorti en 2011, plutôt bien accueilli par les chroniqueurs à ce moment-là. Avec un nom faisant référence à Edgar alan Poe, on peut s’attendre à autre chose que du folk festif. C’est donc dans le domaine du doom/death qu’officient les portugais, un doom qui puise ses racines dans celui que l’on pouvait entendre dans le courant des années 90, très inspiré par la scène anglaise de l’époque donc. Ils se sont d’ailleurs rapprochés de leur source d’inspiration en s’installant à Édimbourg depuis peu.

Dès les premières secondes d’écoute, c’est la référence la plus évidente qui vient directement en tête : My dying Bride, en particulier les albums « Songs of Darkness,Words of light » et « The angel and the dark river », musicalement parlant en tout cas. Si le chant de Miguel se fait très plaintif, on est plus proche d’un chant clair à la Jonas Renske. Une des particularités de An infinity emerged, par rapport à l’album précédent, est l’abandon complet du growl. A oublier donc la rage que peut parfois exprimer le doom/death pour une approche plus mélancolique et gothique, qui sied d’ailleurs très bien aux écrits dans l’esprit d’Edgar Poe.

Les textes écrits par Paulo Pacheco représentent le point fort de l’œuvre d’A dream of Poe. Celui-ci ne reprend pas directement des textes du poète, mais tente de retrouver l’atmosphère romantique des poètes anglo-saxons du 19ème siècle, chargé de mélancolie et de nostalgie et donc pas que Poe, mais on pourrait retrouver des ressemblances avec des textes de Keats, Lord Byron entre autres. Le titre « The Lady of Shalott » de l’album faisait directement référence au poème d’Alfred Tennison, autre figure importante de la poésie britannique. Paulo Pacheco produit un véritable travail d’écriture, dans la lignée, aussi des textes de My Dying Bride. Influence qui n’est décidemment jamais très lointaine.

Côté musique, l’ensemble est, pour le coup, beaucoup moins emballant tant l’album respire le classicisme. Cela comprend des notes de guitare égrenées, une basse d’une lourdeur abyssale et chant plaintif bien larmoyant. Disons que Miguel Santos fait le job et l’écoute de l’album est loin d’être désagréable, ce qui est déjà plutôt bien quand on sait que le style doom peut parfois être pénible sur la durée et les titres font, ici, une bonne dizaine de minutes chacun, mais il n’y a pas non plus de quoi sauter au plafond. Je ne trouve pas de morceaux qui ressortent plus que d'autres et on n’entend rien, non plus, qui n’ai pas déjà été fait, que ce soit chez My Dying Bride, Draconian ou Swallow the Sun. Très classique donc.

Un album honnête qui ravira les amateurs de Doom/gothique, véritable hommage aux années 90, mais qui ne permettra sûrement pas à A dream of Poe de sortir des rangs des seconds couteaux du genre.

Author: Fred.Photography
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