AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): THE BLEAK PICTURE — “SHADES OF LIFE”

(written by Islander)

“There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.”
– Oscar Wilde, “De Profundis”

Those words feature prominently in The Bleak Picture‘s previews of their second album Shades of Life, which will be released by Ardua Music on June 27th. The music will remind you of them, but the music will also inspire other moods and other visions.

The album is a formulation of melodic death-doom metal that is at once earthy and astral, immensely heavy and gossamer light, stricken by sorrow but elevated by expansive visions of splendor, a powerfully immersive, emotionally moving, and often spine-shaking experience from beginning to end. And we are very fortunate to premiere its full stream today.

As before, the new album is the work of vocalist Tero Ruohonen (Autumnfall, Temple Of Kliffoth) and multi-instrumentalist Jussi Hänninen (Autumnfall, ex-Fall Of The Leafe). Before we share our own thoughts about the album, we should share Tero‘s comments about the lyrical themes:

During the writing process, I was reading books about old religions and mythology in Finnish history, as well as watching all sorts of true crime documentaries and other films about truly disappointing human beings. I also went through a period of depression last year, which made me question many things in life – the reason why we, or I, am here and so on. Overall, there haven’t been many uplifting events in my life between now and 2023 to write stories about. That comes through in the lyrics; they’ve been an outlet for me to pour my feelings and thoughts from those moments into. There are no fillers here – just me: sometimes masked, sometimes dreaming, sometimes naked.

Consistent with this description of lyrical themes, the name of the album’s opening song is “Plagued By Sorrow“. That is also an accurate description of the music, but this is no soft and somber piece. The sound is immense and engulfing, the riffs immersive and ringing, the bass an enormous subterranean presence, the vocals a deep and gravel-strewn roar that elevates into wretched, ragged cries.

Gleaming synths enhance the song’s expansive sweep and its daunting grandeur, though the rocking drum cadences (along with big clanging bass throbs) are designed to get heads moving as the surrounding sounds envelop and saturate the senses.

Yes, the music is downcast and granite-heavy, especially when the bass causes enormous crashes and inflicts pile-driving blows, but it’s also a musical vision of splendor, and the brightly ringing and beautifully crafted guitar melodies create feelings of both wonder and yearning. Death-doom metal can often sound desolate and defeated, or morbid and suffocating, or downright terrifying. “Plagued By Sorrow” is none of those things; it’s on a different end of the spectrum.

The musical ingredients displayed in that opener reappear throughout the other six songs, but those other six traverse differing emotional states, and other ingredients also surface.

The enormity of the bass and its often-prominent nuanced movements remain a vital presence, as do the carefully crafted beats, the serrated-edge growls, the harrowing howls, the glistening resonance of the lead guitar, and the transcendent, ethereal splendor of the synths. From song to song, they work together sometimes to pull the mood deeper into grief and dismay but also to create passages of resilience and uplift, or to guide listeners into realms of mystical beauty, or to express rage.

Gritty muttered words also appear, both near and far, as do lacerating screams, wailing chime-like frequencies, ghostly drifting tones, sprightly dancing keys, prog-rock embellishments, and even some singing (in “Silent Exit” and “City of Ghosts”).

Some of the songs rock faster and jolt harder (the fantastic “Without The I” being a prime example), others seem to stagger beneath the weight of despondency (“Code of Ethics”, though that’s only one of its manifestations), and still others seem to venture into spine-shivering and spine-shaking hallucinations (see the spectacular “Circular Reflection”) or cast their gaze toward vast visions of astral (and ominous) panorama (the enormous “Silent Exit”).

Throughout the album, the contrast between staggering low-end heaviness and stratospheric shine is persistent, and persistently gripping — until, that is, the closing song “City of Ghosts”, which is the most haunting of all the album tracks, and one of the most mesmerizing and un-real. Eventually it brings forward a tumbling beat and a heavily groaning and growling bass, but it really sounds very much like what its name portends.

And with that, we’ll step aside and leave you to immerse yourselves in Shades of Life — which really is the best way to experience the album, to let it take you from start to finish without interruption.

All the music was written by Jussi Hänninen. All the lyrics were written by Tero Ruohonen. The album was beautifully mastered by Javier Fernandez (TodoMal).

It will be released by Ardua Music on CD, and digitally by The Bleak Picture. It comes recommended for fans of Paradise Lost, Moonspell, Katatonia, and Fields Of The Nephilim.

PRE-ORDER:
https://arduamusic.bandcamp.com/album/shades-of-life
https://thebleakpicture.bandcamp.com/album/shades-of-life

THE BLEAK PICTURE:
https://www.facebook.com/thebleakpicture
https://www.instagram.com/thebleakpicture