Genre : Death / Doom hybrid
Label : Relapse
Origin : Finland
Rating : 7.5 / 10
Buy it now
Finnish death / doom hybrid Rainroom represents a musical consortium in which both its key participants - death and doom - are having exquisite fun with each other. Alas, it also is an unbalanced record, as 12+ of its 43 minutes are likely to give you sequences by which you can quite safely and peacefully give the green light on saliva pouring from your corner of your mouth to the pillow. This record is "death" only in the sense that it features totally full blown, integrally presented death metal vocals : growls, hauls, guttural, you know the death deal. But, here is the catch, and the dramatic turn of events! Instead of backing the death metal vocals up with traditional death having a rampant run in the background, Rainroom hits you with the kind of doom metal that - thank God and Co.! - still did not give up the will to exist. In other words : and yet it moves, and yet it lives.
The first track of this LP, called "...yeah, many machines", is a profound and efficient example of what the plan is. These growling/hauling death metal vocals are arranged over lively doom metal music which is in its autonomous and epically gloomy hurry to reach its favorite place to suffer on, - on this track, that is - and the ensuing aural experience will likely have a truly significant, lifting and positive effect on you. Or not. It does exhibit this effect on me every time I hear it. It is just hilarious and so logical, the relentless misery of death metal anger being supported by doom metal that seems to despise this level of misery-extroversion, and now it still is ready to hear it out, like a psychoanalyst female giving a session for the rampant reaper while it has one of its favorite nervous breakdowns. Read on to find out how the session went.
Rainroom's And the Other, that was a Machine, has a tamely, but elegantly presented steampunk theme to it, and you only have two choices regarding steampunk : you have to love it, or you have to love it in a manic fashion. Which, granted, may be self-explanatory.
Truth is, that the first track of the LP sounds to be more ripe of a creation than its follow-up, called Abort Engine, which is a much more undisciplined build initially, and it is having this fixated pastime of smashing your awareness against any single wall it comes across. The effective riffing, the structure of things to be found herein though, are not strong enough to claim validation of the act of smashing you around for this long. Probably the least successful track on the LP, and its more peaceful demeanor in the climax does not sound to do all that much noticeable justice to it, either. The tender part sounds more like an alibi, a cover story, and not content you can wholeheartedly regard as relevant, not when measured to the ripeness and the integrity of the stupendous first track "...yeah, many machines".
The similar initial percepts arise with the third track, called Loew Machine, and these impressions decide to stick around for no less than five minutes. What threatens to be another mid-tempo convolution, gets assuaged by legit instrumental saving graces found to be embedded in the track's midsection to its end. That body though is about three times as big as it would still look acceptably hot with/in. Track number four, called Steam Conjecture once again draws a clear and truly vibrant picture : following a flamboyant intro section that also incorporates the goal of preparing you for the Thing that Comes, super-heavyweight doom metal indeed relentlessly arises and demands a stop from time, then addresses its supreme misery of gargantuan proportions with top notch death metal singing to flatter it. And, following a short and elegant interlude to draw your attention away, the exact focal theme comes back to claim your soul with brisker, but still heavy as the tenderness of two bisexual gorillas-type mid-tempo rhythmization. This is a clearly sorrowful song at heart, and the magic arises as result that now there are monster-instruments that unconditionally submit to the charm of the beautiful/sorrowful harmonic pattern, which reigns as the core meaning of the track. This one is the same caliber as the opening contribution, and it is just a pity that two wasteland-fillers are separating them.
Rainroom is a band you want to keep an eye on, (just make sure you have something to wipe the slime off with) and this debut shows sufficient amount of brilliance to regard the relative tedium it spends in the dark via its midsection clearly redeemable.
Rating : 7.5 / 10
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