Review Summary: Once a good band, now a bad band that no one will remember or enjoy.
Raintime seemed to be on the path to greatness when Flies and Lies was released. Their calculations were correct; they had created an excellent melodic death metal/power metal album – however, in Psychromatic, their potent potential perished. You have to wonder what the band was thinking when they chose to trash the elements that made their last album great. True, the band members always wanted to dump their melodic death metal style, but that still is no excuse for their impeccable laziness. The band is now an average-at-best contemporary power metal band. Their style is now too familiar; you may have heard it in any vaguely similar band. Somewhere, at some point, the metal community decided that if an album was filled with heavy, chugging guitars, the band should be hailed for their brilliant composition. It is no wonder why so many metal albums can seem calculated and lifeless. The only way Raintime’s Psychromatic is unique, is in the fact that it is completely un-unique; it is as if the band flipped through a list of 20 bands and unintelligently decided to copy all of them.
The main contributing factor to the album’s mediocrity is the singer (who is quite awful) - his vocals are loud, obnoxious, off tune, and grating. When one only remembers the ear-piercing attempts of the lead singer singing, it is difficult to remember anything else; thus, the reason this album is quite poor is because it is utterly forgettable. The only memorable standpoint of the album is the trauma you will receive after recollecting the lead singer’s gut-melting vocals. Auto-tune is present but can’t possibly cover up this bullshit performance.
Psychromatic is a poor album from a band that had massive potential. If the band continued the path of Flies and Lies, they would have easily rivaled Scar Symmetry. As it is, poorly executed progressive influences, poor dance influences, poor singing, and an overall lack of urgency and creativity make one lousy album. There is the occasionally good song, like finding a quarter in a pile of garbage. Die-hard power metal fans may be able to stomach this, but buyers of this album will be looking for the nearest garbage can to throw this album into.
