The one dark/bleak album in a band's catalogue

Seventh Angel - Lament for the Weary

Very dark, with a strong doom influence.

Masque - Kansas

I think that there is one song that is upbeat. I believe that's the one that the record company made them put on there. Everything else not so much.

I always thought that Lynch Mob S/T had kind of a dark vibe. The only upbeat song there is a cover (Tie your mama down), and even the "party rock" songs like Jungle of Love and I Want It sound less "happy".

Troublezone wrote:

Seventh Angel - Lament for the Weary

Very dark, with a strong doom influence.

I think it wasn't that much different from The Torment, at least not as much different than their latest album The Dust of Years was. To me, The Dust of Years is clearly the darkest work they've done.

Rami Airola wrote:

Troublezone wrote:

Seventh Angel - Lament for the Weary

Very dark, with a strong doom influence.

I think it wasn't that much different from The Torment, at least not as much different than their latest album The Dust of Years was. To me, The Dust of Years is clearly the darkest work they've done.

I disagree. Lament is almost a certified doom album. The riffs and melodies are much darker. Death growls don't necessarily make something dark...

Troublezone wrote:

Rami Airola wrote:

Troublezone wrote:

Seventh Angel - Lament for the Weary

Very dark, with a strong doom influence.

I think it wasn't that much different from The Torment, at least not as much different than their latest album The Dust of Years was. To me, The Dust of Years is clearly the darkest work they've done.

I disagree. Lament is almost a certified doom album. The riffs and melodies are much darker. Death growls don't necessarily make something dark...

Yeah, death growls don't necessarily make something dark, but I think we can't dismiss them either when talking about something being bleak. In this case, the difference in the vocal style wasn't even really the thing that made me think of this album, as since the day I first got the album, I felt the overall musical style to be much bleaker than the style in their previous albums. But then again, I never really understood when people talked about Lament for the Weary for being "doom metal", as for me it just was possibly somewhat slower album than The Torment, and even The Torment was more often slow than fast.

I've always found Seventh Angel to be a mid-to-slow-paced thrash band with some fast parts here and there. Perhaps with some doom influence here and there too. But to me, doom metal has always been something else than what The Torment or Lament for the Weary are.

When I heard The Dust of Years for the first time, I obviously noticed Ian's different vocals (which was a bit of a disappointment to me, as I loved his older style - especially No Longer a Child and Life in All Its Emptiness have some of my favorite metal vocal performances in any album ever), but I also noticed that the songs were generally more slower and heavier than what I had grown to know from them, and the melodies were more melancolic too. The whole vibe was very depressing.

Well, maybe it's because of the harmonies. The Dust of Years has many melancholic melodies with guitar harmonies, and I tend to feel melancholic melodies played in harmony really sad. So perhaps the issue is in different ways people hear certain things.

Or then I've just let the vocals and the overall style in the packaging of the album to lead me thinking it's darker than what it really is. Dunno.

Anyways, as the band has released only three albums, I feel that one of them is distinctively different from the rest. And I feel it's different because it feels slower, heavier, darker and more melancholic. The Torment and Lament for the Weary are much more alike with each other than what The Dust of Years is compared to them. Well, at least to my ears.

I guess we at least perhaps agree that The Torment is the least dark and bleak album from the overall dark and bleak trio, eh?