MelancholicA

Lamentation For A Deprived Desire

Written by: PP on 14/03/2013 22:59:11

Here's a band from Iran that I picked out of our incoming promo pile for two reasons: one, I've never reviewed an Iranian band before, and two, their press release description as 'melancholic cello metal' coupled with a doom-laden album title of "Lamentation For A Depraved Desire" triggered thoughts of a darker version of Apocalyptica in my mind. Picking promos blind like that usually results into either becoming genuinely surprised by an unknown band, or by bewildering disappointment of a description's promise never fulfilled.

The latter is unfortunately the case here. MelanholicA is a two-man project with multi-instrumentalist Afshin Effati playing cello, violin, piano, acoustic guitar, and orchestral keyboards, and Farhad Zabolipour doing percussion and programming. Their sound is melancholic and somber, yes, but any hints of Apocalyptica are wishful thinking, or any other band that you can think of for that matter. If anything, "Lamentation For A Depraved Desire" is an avant-garde album which is more used as experimentation of how far this duo's musical ability goes. That's all well and fine from a composer's perspective, but for the listener it doesn't provide much of anything in actual songs. The songs range from random instruments pounding aggressively that break into tranquil lulls of cello-based ambiance, piano-backed soundscapes, and then into silent passages where whisperous vocals echo across the environment. They are weird, and occasionally they include horror-style faded vocals as well, such as on "Sorrow's Creation", which begs the question to be asked: why are they even on here? The song has a distant free-jazz feel at the same time, which returns me to my original point: this is just avant-garde stuff for the sake of musical experimentation, not exactly listener-friendly stuff by any measure.

As such, many songs feel like they just spend endless minutes in experimentation without really going anywhere. As a redeeming factor I should mention the melancholic clean vocals, which are actually excellently sung, but they are sparingly used so they don't really affect the overall impression. Which, by the way, is quite negative. Impressive for the musicianship behind the band and especially considering their origins in a region where this type of music isn't exactly common, but negative as an overall listening experience. In the future, MelancholicA need to focus on song structure much more to improve.

Download: Sorrow Is Begun
For the fans of: avant-garde music
Listen: Facebook

Release date 01.03.2012
CVLMINIS Records

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