While Heaven Wept
Fear Of Infinity

This is no longer the band that in 1998 brought forth "Sorrow of the Angels," one of the most fascinating and sincere testimonies of 90s doom metal. Between that debut with great future prospects and this new Fear of Infinity, there is a real abyss.

The band from Dale City had returned in 2009 with "Vast Oceans Lachrymose" six years after their second album. It was the CD that saw the departure of Tom Phillips from the microphone, as he decided to focus on the guitar and keyboard. Rain Irving was hired in his place. His vocal timbre, completely different from Phillips', led the Virginia group to vary their musical creed: if the first two albums had shown the capability to root in epic and nostalgic doom with strong theatrical and progressive hues, with "Vast Oceans Lachrymose" and this latest "Fear of Infinity," the band altered their artistic idea, steering towards a progressive-styled power, yet in an ancestral manner still tied to the atmospheres of their beginnings.

Therefore, despite some very distant echoes of the past, the new album by While Heaven Wept is anything but what one might have expected. While a continuation in the vein of the aforementioned "Vast Oceans Lachrymose" was anticipated, it wasn't as clear with what stylistic verve the band would present the old ideas mixed with the new ones. Indeed, with While Heaven Wept one is quite certain of what the starting points are, but it is never too revealed how they develop, given the undeniable originality of the six members.

Thus, the new creation of the star-spangled combo, released in the early months of 2011, proves once again to be complex and varied. The entry of "Hour of Reprisal" is a forceful sonic wall of keyboards and melodies, all declined according to a dark and progressive matrix. The next passage, "Destroyer of Solace," is still marked by melody, this time grafted onto more aggressive guitars. Irving's voice proves well-suited to support the scenarios created by the group. In this compositional vein comes "Obsessions Now Effigies," which, however, does not impact like the two songs mentioned above. All things considered, the opening of "Fear of Infinity" has little or nothing to do with what Phillips and company had offered at the dawn of their career: they appear completely new, there don't seem to be points of contact between what was and what is now.

This desire to show "diversity" is confirmed also in "Unplenitude," a nice ballad but somewhat ends in itself, and in the splendid "To Grieve Forever," also played on a sweetness of sounds that transforms into an atmosphere with decadent connections that harken back to the early part of their career. Light nods to the past are also found in the concluding and equally remarkable "Finality," which simultaneously shows the band's new power/progressive course and what inspired them at their beginnings, namely atmospheres with a clear doom flavor.

The cumulative sum of all these elements results in a varied album deeply imbued with melody. It is not used, as with most of today's bands, as filler but rather as the characterizing matrix of the compositions, suitable and functional to the final intent. This is combined with very fleeting doom references and atmospheres always poised between power and the less complex progressive metal. This "ensemble" confirms While Heaven Wept as one of the most interesting bands in recent years in the metal scene, always capable of renewing themselves and maintaining the artistic offer at excellent levels. All rendered and played with class and finesse.

1. "Hour Of Reprisal" (3:47)
2. "Destroyer Of Solace" (2:40)
3. "Obsessions Now Effigies" (4:38)
4. "Unplenitude" (3:21)
5. "To Grieve Forever" (6:13)
6. "Saturn And Sacrifice" (5:25)
7. "Finality" (11:08)