Search - Virgin Black :: Requiem: Mezzo Forte

Boooring...

Igor | Philadelphia, PA | 11/17/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I'm sorry, but I just have to quote Nigel Tufnel here: "It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black."

This is what happens when band's ambitions go unchecked by a presence of an outside producer. On Requiem mezzo-forte we see Virgin Black desperately striving to paint everything the blackest of black. Instead they manage to achieve something that I thought was impossible - recording an even more boring disk than their previous effort "Elegant... and Dying". Over the course of almost an hour the band is desperately trying to put the listener to sleep by means of tempos so slow, you could double them and still be under 100 bpm. That is supposed to convey the atmosphere of darkness and gloom, I presume. Too bad it doesn't.



Mind you, I'm a fan of dark music. Alice in Chains, Anathema, Opeth - these are all welcome guests in my CD player, and nobody can accuse these bands of playing happy music. But what they possess is the control over the dynamics. At some point Virgin Black had it too. Sombre Romantic was an excellent CD. It knew when to slow down, when to speed up, when to silence everything down to a whisper and when to crush the eardrums with an all-out guitar assault. In fact, it was the brilliance of Sombre Romantic that caused me to buy Requiem even though I thought Elegant was terrible. This is why it was particularly painful hearing them re-do "Midnight Hymn" and pretty much butchering it by slowing everything to a crawl and removing any heaviness from the song.



Is there anything good about Requiem? Yes, of course. The first track is pretty good and even has a catchy melody. Guitar tones are nice and crunchy (would have been even better if only they went somewhere beyond mere power chords). Rowan's vocals keep getting better and better. In short, it's not an utter failure. Furthermore, I'm still hoping that Requiem Fortissimo will return to the glory days of Sombre Romantic. All is lost but hope. But two stars is all I can give to this release.



In conclusion, I'd like to say: Rowan, Samantha, please, realize that guitar and cello have more than 2 lower strings. Tritone is not the only music interval. Minor chords are not the only chords in music. Whole and half notes can be further subdivided to form quarter, eighth and (gasp) sixteenth notes. And finally, darkness looks darkest when juxtaposed with the light.

"

Gothic Rock Opera at its best

drD | So Cal | 07/18/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a gothic rock opera, the only way humanly to describe this music....



Its different from their previous releases in that there are not many tracks, and it has more opera. To me it sounded very Wagnerian lost in a 19th century dream with some Chopin on opiates. That being said, I still think the cd is good, but its more of a continuation (and certain tracks have identical melodies) to their last cd... That was my only disappointment, i wanted some new material, not a recycled melody.. However, the melodies are a bit more grandiose, and the female opera singer was an interesting edition. It sounds like phantom of the opera got lost in the same club as Neo in "The Matrix.""

A MASTERPIECE

Thomas D. Nelson | Erie, PA USA | 08/22/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"By far this is one of the best cd's I've ever heard. The first track alone was enough to make this one of my favorite cd's. The blend of operatic vocals, perfectly placed death metal growls, orchestra instruments, and sludgey sounding guitars is amazing."