Artist: Angel Blake
Label: Dynamic Arts Records
Released: 2008
Length: 46.31
Rating: 3.5/5
The follow-up to the self-titled debut from Sweden’s Angel Blake, who rose from the ashes of black metallers The Crown and are led by ex-The Crown guitarist Marko Tervonen, is called “The Descended”. It’s an interesting blend of power metal punch and ambient-tinged theatrical gloom, a style in which these Scandinavian musicians are very well versed across the metal spectrum. That goes especially for Marko, who is originally Finnish.
Credit goes to the lower tuning of the massive wall of riffs, a key building block of the dark atmosphere, and maybe even more to the vocals of Tobias Jansson, who loves to drop into a lower register, especially in the choruses, whose manly presence adds that all-important dramatic – melancholic touch to the bleak mood flooding the album.
The band has a strong knack for planting a winning melody at the core of the songs, which then crawl under your skin at lightning speed the moment the listener’s brain starts chewing them over. With Defensless, released as the first official single from this album, they proved right away that they’ve got serious talent and that we can seriously count on them in the future. Take the third track, Again, which leans on lumbering, slowed-down riffing, with a sound that owes a lot to a studio “party” of stereo chorus effects, which this time contribute significantly to building the background wall of sound. Remember, say, “Chemical Wedding”, the album from a decade earlier by Iron Maiden screamer Bruce Dickinson? That’s only a sonic comparison, not an atmospheric one. This track also brings together Tobias’s different vocal approaches: the manly one and the “chest-out” one with more melody, which lets a bit of “light” into the twilight atmosphere. The guys successfully capitalize on the dialogue between the two approaches in a vivid chorus that effectively takes over as the atmospheric peak of the song. The gloom hits harder the more lumbering and slowed-down the rhythm in the songs gets. In Alone, for example, the vocals take the lead in building atmosphere in a deliberately stripped-back, rock-style intro, while the sound in the massive curtain of riffs swells gradually through the song with a “crescendo” in the chorus and the ending, which confirms the great experience and studio know-how of its creators. Further on, in the opening section of Wasn’t Meant To Last, the band masterfully combines a double riff dialogue. The first riff is open and loose, and over it they lay a jerky, palm-muted, faster “thrashy” riff, which adds nicely to the dynamics and the build-up of mood. Here too the band makes good use of Tobias’s two-way vocal approach. Through all of this, even the semi-ballad Silent Voice, whose opening motif doesn’t hide its generic resemblance to something already invented, manages to score points thanks to its distinctive ambient trappings, especially thanks to the chorus’s contrasting, distorted eruption of riffs. The album’s peak is saved for the end with You’ll Never Need To Feel Again, the finest showcase of how to successfully combine high melodicism with a doomed atmosphere of mourning.
The guys keep the listener’s attention just as effectively afterward, because despite the sameness of the mood, they break it up with a varied and highly listenable combination of the songs’ basic motifs. No solos. Everything is subordinated to putting that dark atmosphere front and center, which the guys pull off superbly, and solos would only have spoiled the album’s picture this time. “The Descended” is a highly dynamic album.
The softer (rock-leaning) moments, marked by the lower vocal approach, pull the album (in faint shades) even toward the atmosphere of post punk or dark rock bands from the late eighties, such as The Sisters Of Mercy, so the sub-genre tag of dark heavy metal for Angel Black may not be so far off. Angel Blake are an interesting, successful attempt, similar to Poland’s UnSun, led by ex-Vader guitarist Mauser. It’s obvious that black metallers have an innate sense for putting studio emphasis on highly ambient sonic cosmetics. Of course, with The Descended” Angel Blake haven’t reached their creative zenith yet, and the compositions still hide quite a bit in reserve, especially in terms of production, particularly when you picture the achievements of bands like Amorphis, Sentenced, and, I dare say in this case, H.I.M. or Danzig. This should also appeal to everyone who knows Tarot, the band of Nightwish guitarist Marco Hietala. Angel Blake are a band that can still pleasantly surprise us in the future.
Lineup
Tobias Jansson – vocals
Marko Tervonen – guitar
Anders Edlund – bass guitar
Örjan Wressel – upright bass, backing vocals
Janne Saarenpää – drums
Tracklist
1. Anywhere But Here (5:00)
2. Defenseless (4:00)
3. Again (4:57)
4. When All The Lights Are Out (4:39)
5. Alone (5:17)
6. Wasn’t Meant To Last (4:41)
7. In Silence – Augerum (2:15)
8. The Descended (4:32)
9. Silent Voice (4:21)
10. You’ll Never Need To Feel Again (6:49)
