The Vision Bleak
The Deathship Has a New Captain

THE REVIEW

This is a special album that intrigued me a lot ever since its release, given the enthusiastic reviews in every industry magazine and every metal webzine! The desire to own this album was immense, an object of desire to absolutely possess! It often happens that our most coveted goals and our most desired objects (or people), once achieved, fail to meet our expectations, perhaps because the satisfaction once having the desired object isn't as great and enjoyable as the search for the object itself. Is desiring more exciting than the satisfaction of the desire? Who knows, the fact remains that as soon as I listened to this album, the huge expectations I had were disappointed, maybe because I had read in a magazine that this album was the gothic revelation, the album that lovers of these sounds had been waiting for years. However, once I listened to the album free from prejudices and a thousand expectations, I was able to appreciate it more and notice the many interesting things it contains.

For those who don't know or have never heard of this group, how can we define it? Imagine a Peter Steele (or the singer of the Sisters of Mercy) deciding to sing on riffs that seem to have come out of Metallica's black album (like "Metropolis"), add a theatrical atmosphere, music box sounds, a dark imagery reminiscent of 1930s horror films, and you'll have a clearer picture of the sound this band offers. A sound that is not original, but certainly personal and intriguing. So already from the second track (excluding the first which functions more as an intro) "The Night of the Living Dead", we can grasp the "climax" that permeates the album! The sparing use of keyboards tends to create horrific atmospheres, and the heavy use of guitars in which a well-executed baritone singing is inserted! The following "Wolfmoon" has a more marching pace with the use of female choirs in the background, and the same setting is followed by the engaging "Metropolis." "Elizabeth Dane" is an instrumental track perfectly placed in the album's context and is an instrumental cover of the main theme from Carpenter's film "The Fog." "Horror of Antarctica" is one of my favorite tracks, very solemn and decadent. The conclusion is entrusted to "The Deathship Symphony," symphonic, theatrical, with a very fitting use of female choirs closing a very intriguing album! Final information: the two members of the group "Schwadorf and Konstanz" come from Empyrium!