Artist: Downcast Art
Label: Self-released
Release: 2011
Length: 50:42
Rating: 4/5
Downcast Art are a Croatian heavy metal band from Karlovac who stormed onto the metal scene last year with their debut »Forbidden Memories«, and it’s fair to say that symphonic gothic power metal from across the Kolpa river hasn’t sounded this convincing in ages, if ever. ShadowIcon from Postojna instantly spring to mind, who a year ago also raised the bar for quality in this genre in Slovenia very high.
For a debut, this album has gone through a hefty dose of fine, meticulous polishing and honing. The members are obviously perfectionists, well seasoned in their trade, and they know exactly what they want. They really thought of every little detail. From the full-blooded arranging of the music itself to the design of the booklet (all the lyrics and music for the songs come with drawings that tie meaningfully into the message of each track).
»Forbidden Memories« is a set of ten sensibly rounded pieces (songs) that form a dynamic web and keep up a highly varied flow of moods across the album. It’s adorned by a perceptive weave of guitar phrases, which are the driving engine of Donwcast Ar’s music. What’s more, the album is superbly produced, and that goes first and foremost for the exceptionally potent, lively, sharp and concrete-massive wall of sound built by the guitar riffing across the whole record. The counterweight that evens out the building blocks of the sonic picture comes from the drum production, whose playing highlights jerky bursts of double bass drum pedal in just the right places, and also effectively fills the space between motif shifts and rhythm changes with artfully implanted transitions . The guitar riffs are enriched by prominent keyboard accompaniment that brings in the symphonic element, an extra helping of pomp and bombast to the dramatic mood, and often we get to enjoy a seamless dialogue of melodic interplay between guitar and keyboards over a single motif. The subcutaneously catchy melodies, which hit their emotional peak in the middle of the choruses, are weighed down in all their pomp by a gothic, mourning mood, which is an important building block of the look and feel of »Forbidden Dreams«.
The album itself opens with a majestic build-up of atmosphere, developing so that the lead motif, the basic element of a Celtic-gothic pastoral, gains layers through the harmonized entry of individual instruments, repeating up to a closing crescendo that flows almost imperceptibly into Bloodred Ink, which kicks the album up to a higher energy level. This song sums up the band’s art expression laid out in the previous paragraph. A gothic-cold brushstroke of an intro with a peak in a bombastic chorus melody. That’s the basic mold the album sticks to until the end. Miris prošlosti (Scent of the Past) works great in Croatian, and among the most interesting moments of the album is the title track Forbidden Dreams, with a duet of »Type O’Negative-style« male vocals and an operatic female soprano in the verse, while the darkly mourning mood swings effectively in favor of symphonic power metal bombast in the track that follows, Face Without A Name, which carries one of the best-defined melodies in a chorus. In its last minute and a half, Downlight, with its extended theatrical outro, carries the album to a new atmospheric peak right at the finish – Downcast thought of this detail too and capitalized on it successfully! This one could easily have been stretched by another minute or two! Also in a progressive manner, as the lively drum structures beneath the guitar riff hint!
Downcast Art are no sugar-coated softies. Their music is clearly steeped in the feel of drama theater from start to finish, which doesn’t plant flowers and knows no pathetic self-pity, even though the album carries a pronounced component of dark, even mourning mood. The pure, operatically sung female mezzo-soprano doesn’t go looking for deliberate parallels with the vocals of established bands in the genre, such as Nightwish (in Tarja’s days) or Epica, even though it’s close to them in the basic cues, but develops its own engraving of vocal interpretation, which gives Downcast Art’s music its trademark stamp. The band also thought to equip the lead vocal melodies with choir parts – a proven formula for livening up the atmosphere.
The generally captivating and very beautiful vocals of singer Jelena are the only point in the production that could still be upgraded. The interpretation lacks nothing, and at moments this operatic fluttering even evokes hints of medieval madrigal singing (Home Of Silence, the calm part toward the end of Downlight,..). Only the one-dimensional approach, sticking to the proven opera formula, comes across at times as a bit rigid and clunky, since with a little more »experimentation« she could squeeze even greater reach and artistry out of Downcast Art’s music. That way it would sit even more snugly within the framework of the accompaniment and the massive riff wall. Still, it’s a small thing that will get an upgrade down the road, once the band matures further.
With the high quality standards embodied by their studio debut, Downcast Art make no secret of their big creative ambitions. »Forbidden Dreams« is a definitive standout, and not just for the band but for the Croatian heavy metal scene as a whole, and with it Downcast Art can confidently apply for a move to a well-established, internationally recognized label of the Nuclear Blast Records caliber and so open the door to a breakthrough abroad. After the effort they’ve shown so far, they’ve surely earned it!
Line-up
Jelena Mužar – vocals
Kristijan Radeka – guitar, vocals
Zdravko Smenderovac – keyboards
Davor Grdić – bass
Saša Fajković – drums
Production
Downcast Art
Track list
1. Everlasting
2. Bloodred Ink
3. Miris Prošlosti
4. Home Of Silence
5. Forbidden Dreams
6. Face Without A Name
7. Whisper Of A Dying Rose
8. innocence Never Dies With Desire
9. Chants From The Deep
10. Downlight
11. Home of Silence (piano version)*
*…. bonus track
