Revelations Of Rain (Откровения Дождя) - Откровения Дождя (Revelations Of Rain) (CD)

Review
PAVILLON 666
7.5/10
13.07.2009

Revelations of rain, voilà un joli nom ! Aucune tromperie sur la marchandise ! Tout y est pour faire comprendre à l'auditeur qu'il n'est pas là en présence d'une œuvre faite pour faire valser les vieilles un soir d'été sur la place du village, non ! Au grand jamais! Ces musiciens d'origine Russe ne sont pas là pour plaisanter, une fois de plus Solitude prod (label russe) ne s'est pas trompé en signant ces sombres lutins car la définition même de la solitude pourrait être inscrite à l'intérieur de cet opus noir et porteur d'une mélancolie prompt à détruire tout idée de positivisme ! Toi qui aime le Doom lugubre et la compagnie des morts, tu va être servi ….

Doté d'une production de très bonne qualité, très bien équilibrée, à la fois puissante et limpide aucun défaut majeur à signaler, Revelation of rain joue et fort. Tel un rouleau compresseur, la section rythmique bat la mesure sans sourciller ; lente et massive elle ne laisse aucun moment de répit, emmenant l'auditeur vers sa dernière demeure fraichement creusée, sans aucune possibilité d'évasion. Seules les mélodies cristallines et particulièrement bien travaillées des guitares permettront aux esprits perturbés de trouver un peu de repos, un peu de compassion au milieu de la froide humidité de leur caveaux, ce trou sans fond, qui nous attend tous.... Le tout martelé par une voie caverneuse, venue des enfers, difficilement compréhensible pour les non initiés. Celle ci manque un peu de diversité, basant ses principales interventions sur un même ton monotone, qui nuit sur la longueur à une parfaite harmonie des instrumentations, !qui sont très souvent d'un très bon niveau technique, dommage certes ! Mais tout n'est pas définitif, une fois ce petit accroc passé, digéré, Revelation of rain, prouve à de nombreuses reprises qu'il est largement au niveau de formations comme Shape of despairs, Officium triste ou Mourning beloveth, avec qui les slaves partagent quelques affinités en particulier dans cette facilité à passer des émotions si dramatiques que l'univers tout entier semble vouloir s'effondrer avec elles !

La Russie n'a pas à rougir de sa scène. En quelques années des progrès impressionnant ont été réalisés, en particulier dans le domaine du Dark-Doom et autres styles spirituels, cet opus en est la preuve vivante ! On ne s'ennuie pas outre mesure, bien entendu tout n'est pas parfait, parfois un peu répétitif, parfois un peu prévisible, mais les sensations, la musicalité et la charge émotionnelle sont elles bien présentes,affirmant encore un peu plus le caractère bien trempé et sans compromis des fantomatiques dessins qui envahissent l'espace une fois les premières notes jouées... à conseiller à tout les misanthropes de la terre . Amen.

Author: SINISTRE 13

Review
Hrdsounds
7.5/10
05.07.2009

Secondo album per i russi Revelations Of Rain.
Parlare nel 2009 di un album che ricalca in tutto e per tutto le sonorità, lo stile e le tematiche (in certi frangenti) di My Dying Bride e Morgion sembra decisamente anacronistico, e difatti questo album omonimo non presenta nulla di nuovo sotto alcun frangente, bensì una continuazione se mai più curata nei dettagli di quanto presentato nel debutto dello scorso anno.
Melodie, tristezza, nessuna speranza in un domani migliore, aggressività, parti atmosferiche (ottimamente ricreate dai chitarristi Ilya Remizov e Vladimir Andreev con la partecipazione essenziale delle tastiere di Olesya Muromskaya): sono questi gli ingredienti di un album roccioso ma allo stesso tempo dinamico, non uno di quei mattoni indigeribili.
Nel nostro caso le canzoni scorrono bene e pur presentando un vocalist "di cortesia" e totalmente anti-metal nel look come Forside (non a tempo pieno in line-up) la resa è decisamente ottima, complice anche una lunghezza media delle canzoni attorno ai 7 minuti (decisamente meno della media di altri album doom dello stesso genere, che abbondano in durate a due cifre...).

Piccola nota di contorno: anche questa volta tutto quanto è in russo, per cui ringrazio la mia amica Silvia per la gentile traduzione dei titoli e testi

Author: Gabriele "Anaconda" Frontini

Review
My Last Chapter
9/10
01.08.2009

Ok, so I know Solitude Productions is a Russian label, and the band for this release is also a Russian home-based one. I guess most of their customers/listeners hail from the same humongous country. But damn, couldn’t they at least have included some info in English, anything at all. The entire booklet (band name, track titles, lyrics etc) is in the Cyrillic alphabet so I don’t understand jack shit. At least one sleeve could’ve contained the band name in the Latin alphabet, that’s not too much to ask for. But ok, at least the label’s site has some info for us non-Slavs. Anyway, enough about that. This is the second album by Otkroveniya Dozhdya (which apparently means ‘revelations of rain’), a band I’ve never heard of before. But so far Solitude Prod. has never disappointed me with a release, so I certainly have high hopes; this label does not sign bullshit acts.
As with most doom metal bands this record is densely emotional, and you’re constantly being thrusted back and forth between despair, melancholy and agony. And that’s even without me understanding any lyrics; they do a damn fine job getting the emotions across solely through the music. There are some classic doom drum patterns to be found here, but they change patterns and varies it throughout each track, so you never have an opportunity to get completely numb. They even speed things up a bit at times, like for instance in Zimnyaya skorb', which makes my mind go towards Pantheist a bit. And I suppose there are a few aspects of Otkroveniya Dozhdya that can be reminiscent of said band, but it’s difficult to label this album with a certain subgenre to doom. They linger somewhere in between pure doom/death and the melodic variant, but at times it’s almost ominous enough to be funeral-esque. Mourning Beloveth comes to mind, but Otkroveniya Dozhdya has a much harsher edge to really be compared to such a melodic act. But they can also suddenly include classic heavy/thrash metal riffing, like in Serym gnevom oseni oblichen. It only lasts for a short while, but still shows for the variation.
Vocally it’s pure growl action with the occasional screams (masterfully performed, might I add, just listen to Sny I – Resheniye) hovering in the background. They have stayed clear off the classic recipe of dual growl/clean vocals, which takes the edge of the melody; hence not making the outcome pure melodic doom/death. They’ve even included keyboards, but it’s so subtlety used that it never becomes overbearing and oozing of melody to ruin the otherwise perfect melancholic atmosphere. The riffing excels in those emotional, agonized melodic lines that you love the genre for. There are tons of times when I go into a catatonic-like state, nodding back and forth, keeping pace with the drum beat and focusing solely on the beautiful guitar lines.
There’s nothing bad to say about their writing or performance skills, as such a monotonous genre is full of variation and nuances here. The record is 64 minutes long, which to me is a little bit too long even for a genre such as this. But nevertheless there’s no trace of fillers, and each riff, beat, keystroke and growl sounds carefully planned, delivering a very skillful album. Sound-wise the thick, hefty production fits the music perfectly, so I can’t find anything in particular (except for some minor issues already mentioned) to complain about. Masterful!

Review
Brutalism
2/5
08.11.2009

Well it seems like in the Funeral Death Doom world you have bands like My Dying Bride Swallow The Sun, Mourning Beloveth and you have a million other bands that sound like those bands. Revelations Of Rain are no exception, it is pretty much every cliche of Doom/Death that is possible to imagine; slow riffs, plodding drums, dry growled vocals, and extended moody melodic ideas expressed largely through keyboards. While I thought their first album "Marble Shades Of Despair" was actually pretty good, this album has left me a bit cold. It maybe one of the most generic, middle of the road Doom Metal albums I have ever heard. There is one track where they seem to break with the formula (Winter Grief), where they pick up the pace a little. At least it sounds a little fresh and interesting, the rest of the album they just plod along and the truth is its just so predictable even for Doom Metal. They do try and create the dark brooding atmosphere but most of the time, the riffs and arrangements are just too pedestrian for words. On "I Left Myself Here" and "Empire Of White Light" there is flashes of brilliance but like too often on the album the songs just go nowhere. Its like watching a movie with some great scenes but a terrible story-line, you might sit through just for the good moments but it takes some patience to sit through the whole thing. They even seem to re-create the same melody lines in some songs or at least real close to the same but there is some good points to be made about the album. The mix is crystal clear and the guitar sounds real heavy, yet the album never feels overproduced. While the songs seem like simple compositions on the surface, dig a little deeper you will hear some cool intricacy especially in the bass playing. This is a bit of a let-down after their first album which I thought showed some real promise and potential, on this album however they seem to be struggling for ideas even though they are obliviously good musicians. Maybe the next album will see a return to form but for now this is a real unremarkable effort.

Author: ed