Black Metal History Month - A Brightly Painted Corpse : " Serenades of a Dying Swan"

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These guys are more like Atmospheric black metal than they are the blackened doom often credited with, this is my first time with the band so not sure if this si a change in direction of not . The piano plays heavily in the first few songs. It is not until "Worn in Tatters" that you hear a beat that slows down to more of a doom, pacing but it is no slower than some Burzum or most Depressive Black Metal, which this also reminds me of . The guitar tone is more of a buzz of feed back that reminds of An Autumn for Crippled Children. The piano parts continue to flourish so it is certainly a signature of their sound on this album. It swells into a more doom like section where a weird scraping sound comes from the corners of the speakers and the vocals take a lower death metal growl.

On  "Hopeless Excavation"  the bulk of the song howls at you with a similar frenzy to most suicidal or atmospheric black metal I do like the guitar melody they groove out on in the song's final moments. It's not a bad song it jsut doesn't grab me and hold me for the hold ride and I don't get drawn back into til the end, but then again I haven't finished my first cup of coffee so that might factor in too.  There is a more spacious creep to the sparse verse that opens the title track. This is atmospheric , but I am not sure any traces of doom can be heard which is fine with me despite my love for it. The synths creep in over the more heavy convergence that still doesn't allow the song to descend into the more conventional forms of even atmospheric black metal much less a blast beat fest. In the song's final moments when it does take on a more dirge like pace, it strikes me more as atmospheric death metal than doom, do to the aggressive double bass employed.

The albums ends on it's most aggressive and perhaps most black metal note with "Suffering from Kuru" . It does slow all the way down to a piano interlude. I will say this projects strength is the wide dynamic range they entwine into these songs. At 13 minutes the last song sprawls on a  little long for me personally, but they make better use of the time than most. I'll round this up to a 9, unsure if this will make it onto the more elusive drive of my iPod , but I enjoyed this album and will continue to recommend it.