Trail of Tears
Profoundemonium

THE REVIEW

I have decided to dedicate my fourth review to a band that, strangely, has not yet been considered here on Debaser. This is the Trail of Tears, a long-standing Norwegian band founded in 1994 by vocalist Ronny Thorsen as a gothic metal group (but it's better to talk about "extreme gothic" as the group leader did). Their debut album, "Disclosure in red," was released in 1998, the same year as other significant works like "Widow's weed" by Tristania and "Aegis" by Theatre of Tragedy, two fundamental groups of the genre with which Trail of Tears must undoubtedly be compared.

My review will focus on the band's second work, "Profoundemonium" from 2000. I’ll say right away that, in my opinion, it's a very good record that has elaborated and developed what was present in its nascent form in the debut. What strikes me favorably is the freshness that "Profoundemonium" maintains eleven years after its release, despite many of the elements characterizing the gothic genre having been rehashed ad nauseam by many bands, often in a superficial and clichéd way.

Furthermore, and this is what I consider the album's strength, the individual tracks cooperate to create a dreamlike atmosphere, in which moments of decadent melancholy are skillfully alternated with sudden, furious black metal-influenced accelerations (and in this, Trail of Tears distinguish themselves from Tristania and more generally from many other groups of the gothic genre, showing that they possess their own stylistic signature, which is decidedly more aggressive).

Excellent examples are "In Frustration's web" and "Disappointment's true face", two tracks exemplary for their variety of tones and evocative capacity, in which Trail of Tears also show that they are not prisoners of the genre's stereotypes, as the female voice (Helena Iren Michaelsen on the first two albums) alternates between operatic and light singing, as had already happened in the previous album, but especially "Fragile Emotional Disorder", a track that I found splendid and moving, perhaps also due to the presence of Kjetil Nordhus’s clean male voice from Green Carnation, who was later given a much larger role in the band (he completely replaces the female voice in "Free fall into Fear" from 2005, by the way a stylistic turning point for the group that I found interesting).

Finally, there is no unnecessary pomposity: the melodic lines of the different instruments are not particularly elaborate in themselves, often tending instead to generate a sort of hypnotic effect on the listener through repetition, I believe intentionally (just listen to the keyboard line in "Profoundemonium," the intro guitar in "Sign of the Shameless," or the riff in “Image of hope”!) but they intersect and dialogue with each other in such a way as to construct tracks that are anything but static or predictable.

In conclusion, I’ll point out what I consider one of the few flaws of the album: the cover, truly ugly—no offense to the male audience—not so much for the image itself, questionably aimed solely at men, but because it is absolutely gratuitous and not coherent with the album. But, you can’t have everything.