For fans of the slower, doomier side of metal, the debut album from Italy’s Blood Red Water should be right up their alley. Sporting a more straightforward approach than that of doom/death legends Celtic Frost and with a less sonic, much less alluring style than Type O Negative, Tales of Addiction and Despair is apparently just what the doctor ordered to keep fans of this genre’s appetites quenched.

However, that doesn’t mean that the album is a splendor or a treat to listen; its stale approach to an over-saturated genre is more an exercise in tedium than entertainment. Each of the six songs on Tales… follow the same blueprint of droning out elongated riffs that ride in the passenger seat to harrowing, dreary vocals. Oftentimes throughout the album, one can find the same sort of misery that was abundant in the early-to-mid-1990’s suicidal grunge acts; whether it be the down-tuned guitars, super slow/simplistic riffs, or songs about wallowing in one’s misery.

The final production is on par with the finer examples of how metal, regardless of genre, is supposed to be captured. The instruments have thankfully retained their raw graininess and there is nary a hint of trying to polish things up to create a tidy, pristine image. The songs are about dreariness and depression and the production has captured those feelings tenfold in the final mix. However, the overall product simply has no punch to it and nothing stands out on the album. It’s sometimes difficult to tell when one song ends and another starts; in the end, the entire album just sounds like one long, drawn out jam session of a band still trying to find its identity.

Still, Tales… isn’t terrible. It just fails to stand out in a sea of clones that have taken over what was already a rather boring and tedious subgenre of metal. There’s an audience out there for bands such as Blood Red Water, but even sticklers to doom/sludge/whatever might be skeptical or too fickle for this. It’s the band’s debut and they could always grow as musicians. However, on Tales of Addiction and Despair, Blood Red Water fails to make the listener care about what addictions the band suffers from or how to treat it.

 

 

 

 

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments