Monday, July 6, 2015

Album review: To/Die/For - Cult - 2015


Genre: Gothic Metal
Country: Finland
Year: 2015

1 - In black
2 - Screaming birds
3 - Unknown III
4 - Mere dream
5 - You
6 - Straight up
7 - Let it bleed
8 - End of tears
9 - Dying embers (Demo)

After 4 long years, the iconic Gothic Metal band To/Die/For releases its seventh studio album. It is one of the most anticipated works for this year 2015. Right up I want to say that this is a good album, and a lot better than the previous crapy one “Samsara”. So, if you haven’t already, give it a chance and listen to it.

Before going any further, let me get this clear, the style and brilliance from the first three albums is forever gone, and it won’t comeback. Those are the best albums in this band’s life and that’s how is going to forever be. It’s better to deal with this facts right away to not make too big expectations and to allow us to appreciate this new release by its own merits.

So, this new work comes after “Samsara”, which was just a mediocre album. The band has been struggling hard since their fourth album “IV” to achieve the high standards of the first ones, but they have not succeeded in that task. This time they might have got the closest possible. 

The albums has only 8 songs, plus a bonus track, making a total play time of 41:47. That’s a bit less that what one could expect from any LP album. This is a letdown, of course. But quality is what really matters… however this work is of a mediocre one. Strangely, the albums doesn’t pack the single “Dear Delirium”, released in 2014, which is a shame because it’s a good piece, even better than others included in this work. For the price of almost 15 euros, the content is too scarce and too mediocre. 

The version that I’m reviewing here comes with a bonus track. It’s “Dying Embers”, in its Demo 2001 version. It was a good choice for a bonus track. Even though it is a known song, this version is very different from the one released in Jaded. It is a different song, indeed, that everyone would be happy to have and listen. The remastering process was good enough to give an extra added value to the piece.

The album hasn’t any intro or coda, but what it has is a kind of interlude of about 2:35, titled “Mere Dream”. It’s hard to call it a song, not just because of its length, but also because of its lack of any depth and identity. It just serves as a kind of link between “Unknown III” and “You”.

The first two songs are the best ones. For sure, that’s why they were chosen by the band as singles. From there, it’s downwards. The third track, “Unknown III”, pretends to be a sequel of two excellent songs from the albums “Epilogue” and “Jaded”. However, besides the name (without “The”), it’s hard to link this new track with the previous ones, just because they are so different in both composition and quality. It’s almost a disrespect towards them. Surprisingly (in a bad way), this album version of “Unknown III” is much worse than the demo version released some years ago. By the way, you can listen to it for free here

The fourth song is “Mere Dreams”. As said before, it’s just an interlude that doesn’t shine in any way, thus there is not more to say about it. The piano tune from the fifth Track, “You”, reminds maybe too much to a Crematory’s song titled “The Fallen”. Just listen to them both and surely you’ll see the resemblance. “You” is by far from being a great song but it’s good enough to listen to it a couple of times. The cover of the song “Straight Up”, from Paula Abdul, is not as good as the original one, and it feels like a big missed opportunity. The female vocals in this track add a little spice, but nothing too remarkable. The next song is “Let it Bleed”. It doesn’t bring anything new or especially memorable. Finally, the last song “End of Tears” is the weakest point in this compilation (besides the interlude) and really makes you wonder “what they were thinking”.

The sound is acceptable but nothing more than that. The drums are lacking presence and the guitars seem not powerful enough. It feels just bland and unimpressive, even though the mixing processes was good enough to reach the due volume level and sound separation. The audio quality shown in “Epilogue From The Past”, five years ago, is a lot better.

Even with its highs and lows, this work is a good one. Not brilliant, not superb, not bad, not shit.

Rating: 6/10