Review Summary: All-female depressing doom-sludge.
Doom is a particular metal subgenre I have always found the most difficult to get into. It tends to be monotonous and droning noise tedious to the point of shoot-yourself boring, at least in my opinion. shEver is my first full-on experience with doom.
shEver is a 4-piece, all-female doom metal band from Switzerland.
Ocean of Illusions is their first and so far only full-length album. The album is not so much a disappointment as a debut that leaves room for very probable improvement. Opener
An Illusion begins with only the sound of crows cawing before plowing headfirst into a 9-and-a-half minute auditory experience I would guess is extremely similar to being blind at a satanic funeral rite. Frontwoman Alexandra bark-screams over clean vocal moans from either guitarist Jessica or bassist Nadine (I can’t tell the difference). Jessica meanwhile slams out chord after drawn-out chord. It’s as emotionless as metal gets, this.
Following tracks
Silver Water,
End My Silence, and
Confiança are just as boringly monotone as the first track. The latter two, however, do utilize Alexandra’s own clean vocals that, when added to the slow, driving underlying beats gives the impression of a female
Metallica cover band. The album thus far may give you the wrong idea. There are only small bits of screams one might call hooks only relatively, and the guitarwork is so dull that even the mildest chord progression sounds like a
Cryptopsy solo. Drummer Sarah abuses her high-hat so much its incessant.
Now here’s where you should pay attention. The 8-minute outlier
Ocean of Pain is where shEver truly impress me. The vocals take a completely different approach, overlapping drawling cleans from Nadine and Jessica with Alexandra’s higher hardcore screams, sans the typical growls. The guitars rise and fall, commuting between a total of about 4 different chords, more than the first half of the album combined most likely. At about the 5:30 mark, the vocals change again, blending the return of Alex’s (does she mind if I call her Alex?) growl and scream with, no ***, actual
singing. Surprisingly, shEver have come out of their shades-of-grey shell to incorporate some sort of songwriting into their widely mind-numbing genre.
Hallelujah the goodness continues! The 12-minute 54-second opus
Obsession closes the album on a note much higher than it would have been had the closer been
Confiança. The few vocals at the beginning are either tired-sounding growls or spoken words in the style of
Suicidal Tendencies’ Institutionalized. The guitar starts to pick up the slack with considerably more emotion than previously and a violin adds a lot of much-needed color. If
Ocean of Pain displayed the vocal range, then
Obsession shows off the repertoire of instrumental emotion that shEver is capable of.
Ocean of Illusions is the only doom metal album I’ve listened to in full, so comparison is difficult. However, on a purely musical level this album is a typical case of newbanditis. There’s loads of room to improve, and the last two tracks are actually very entertaining. This album can be obtained free, but I suggest listening
Ocean of Pain and
Obsession before continuing to the rest of the album.
***Follow WillieFisterbut’s link in
Free Music Vol.2 to download
Ocean of Illusions free.
