Style: Progressive Death/Black/Gothic Metal with Fusion parts (mixed vocals)
Review by: Zach
Country: Russia
Release date: 17 September, 2021
Let me give a disclaimer now, even if it sounds like a middle schooler wrote it. Get out the caution tape for your door, yell at your parents, and break out the Korn CD, because it’s about to get edgy. I love dark things. From the Berserk posters on my wall, to my grimdark fantasy-ridden bookshelf, to the “scary” music my friends all say I like. If I could, I’d spend the rainy nights in my dark, gloomy castle reading Edgar Allan Poe by the candlelight. Point I’m trying to make here is that I brood better than Batman himself, and “fun” is a dirty word in the post-apocalyptic hellscape where I come from.
When I saw Melancholy’s Waiting for Darkness, I expected a buffet of not-fun. Just look at that album cover! Surely, this is chockfull of spooky dissonance and gurgled vocals. I turned off the lights in my room, closed my door and sat back with my eyes closed, ready to be entrenched in abyssal harmonies and pure, unforgiving darkness. When those fluttery strings gave way to a furious, blast-beaty, Vile Remains-esque riff in the opener, ‘Astroshine’, I expected the worst in the best way possible.
And then that funny little trumpet melody kicked in.
Sax, horns, and strings in metal seem to be becoming more commonplace in prog. But the thing that separates Melancholy from them all is there are three full time members just devoted to unconventional instrumentation. And this isn’t like the Rivers of Nihil “now it’s time for the sax solo” parts. They’re just sprinkled all over the songs, providing infectious melodies that stuck in my brain long after my first listen. The use of unconventional instruments is the best I’ve heard since Demoniac earlier this year, and just like the aforementioned Chilean thrashers, nothing feels like a gimmick to feel more “prog”.
But let’s not forget the real meat and potatoes of this album. The multi-talented Roos Beast covers such a wide array of riffing on this album it boggles my mind. Take the song ‘Погребальная яма’ for example, starting off reminiscent of black metal before shifting into proggy goodness with Beast echoing the earlier woodwind section. Afterward, the band turns down the tempo and turns up the Paradise Lost with ‘Moon Spirits’, loaded with Beast’s and Tatiana Protsenko’s beautiful cleans and Eugeniy Ilin’s flute.
And by making ‘Moon Spirits’ a slower song, they’re free to go back into that insane, breakneck pace the first half of this album had. This album has a 44-minute runtime, which is pretty average for a prog album, and it still feels so short. If Melancholy wanted to constrain the runtime, they could’ve cut ‘Witch Love’ and ‘Black Roses’, which I feel both lack the insanity or the creative mood-setting of the prior songs. But it feels like the penultimate song, ‘Rituals’, is the perfect spot to bleed into some grand finale. Unfortunately, it never does. Some grand, epic title track would’ve fit perfectly here. Alas, a small nitpick like that isn’t enough from keeping this on repeat for days to come.
So, the question comes down to this. Did I have fun listening to this record? Unfortunately. But beyond that, it showed me that Melancholy is a band to be taken seriously. The catchy little sax and horns in the start of the album slowly give way to something more majestic with each listen. Something to brood in a dark room too, perhaps? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to wipe the smile this record gave me off my face.
Recommended tracks: Astroshine, Moon Spirits, Rituals
Recommended for fans of: Demoniac, Paradise Lost, Barren Earth
You may also like: Burial in the Sky, Æthĕrĭa Conscĭentĭa
Final verdict: 8/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Melancholy is:
– Roos Beast (Guitar, Vocals, Keys)
– Levon (Bass, Drums)
– Andrey Ischenko (Drums)
– Tatiana Protsenko (Vocals)
– Alex Kozlovsky (Cello)
– Eugeniy Ilin (Clarinet, Sax, Flute)
– Boris Pronin (Trumpet)
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