Style: Traditional (clean, female vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: Italy
Release date: 6 April, 2020
NOTE: This album was originally included in the April 2020 issue of The Progressive Subway
Finding a band that worships Dream Theater is easy. Finding a band that worships Dream Theater that is actually talented is uncommon. Finding a band that worships Dream Theater that is talented and have a sound (relatively) their own is actually pretty rare. Enter Black Painted Moon. A friend on Discord recommended this band to me, and seeing how they weren’t on ANY cataloguing website nor did they have a Bandcamp page, I just had to review them.
There’s a lot to like here. First thing that struck me about this band is the vocals. As I mentioned they are female, but they do not sound like the type of female metal singers you’re used to. It’s like a pop singer/songwriter a la Christina Aguilera suddenly decided prog metal was her passion all along. I really like the swagger it brings. She’s got some real pipes and her vocal presence is commanding. The phrasing and articulation can get kinda muffled at times, but her talent is tremendous. Another standout performance that struck me was the keyboard playing. The patch choices are tasteful and the atmosphere created is great. “Shell of Lies” in particular highlights the keys well.
The songwriting however is a mixed bag. The overall playing is amazing and there are many awe-inspiring moments, but often the songs just tend to suddenly fade out of existence, like they weren’t sure what to do with them anymore. Again I have to highlight “Shell of Lies”. It’s a fantastic song for about 7 and a half minutes, with a very fun Haken-inspired instrumental section at the end, but then the last 3 minutes are an atmospheric fadeout of some sort? It makes no sense. All the tension that was built up just dissolves over “a t m o s p h e r e”. Nothing really happens in these final 3 minutes. It’s kinda like “The Count of Tuscany” just ended after the quiet part. And there are many more of these moments on the album. Songs with great build-up, great quirky instrumentals and great singing, but then they just fizzle out and you’re stuck wondering what even happened in the first place. They especially seem to struggle at bringing the tension they built to a fitting climax. Combined with some awfully muffled mixing this just makes the record very hard to listen to. Seriously, that drum tone makes even Mangini’s drums on the self-titled sound good. I guess a positive is that you can hear each instrument clearly? Though that isn’t completely honest either as the GUITAR of all things gets buried behind the synths and the obscenely loud drums more often than you’d like. Speaking of guitars, they are missing ferocity. During this record I often found myself missing some quality aggressive riffs and his solos barely get into shredding territory either. The mellower stuff he’s good at, but he lacks the intensity and ferociousness needed for the heavier bits. Just give me a neck breaker every once in a while. It’d be appreciated. Lastly, I highly recommend you to refrain from reading the lyrics. Those are… not good.
When all is said and done though, Personæ is an album filled to the brim with potential. As of now, there is a lot that still needs to be improved upon, but the talent is there. Should they fix the issues listed in the review, we might just have a classic album on our hands next time. Let’s hope that this will be the When Dream and Day Unite to their Images and Words, so to speak.
Recommended tracks: Drown Into You, M.P.D.
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, early Haken, Seventh Wonder
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Black Painted Moon is:
– Wafa el Abbassi (vocals)
– Marco Minardi (bass)
– Carlo Lugnan (guitars)
– Damiano Affinito (guitars, backing vocals)
– Carlo Mezzalira (drums)
– Francesco Bortolussi (keyboard)
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