Quote:
»He beckoned then to the Greek physician, and stretched out his arm. The skilled Greek in the twinkle of an eye opened the vein at the bend of the arm. Blood spurted on the cushion, and covered Eunice, who, supporting the head of Petronius, bent over him and said,—
“Didst thou think that I would leave thee? If the gods gave me immortality, and Cæsar gave me power over the earth, I would follow thee still.”
Petronius smiled, raised himself a little, touched her lips with his, and said,—
“Come with me.”
She stretched her rosy arm to the physician, and after a while her blood began to mingle and be lost in his blood.«
- Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis
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The above excerpt, in my eyes, stands among the most touching death scenes in literature. No agony, no final stand, not even many words spoken; just two people going out at peace, by each other’s side. And trust me when I say, that’s exactly how I’d like to die. Even if the whole world was about to end, I would like to just say a prayer and enjoy someone’s companionship. The concept of
The Final Revelation is quite relatable in this light. The year is 2036 and the world is falling to pieces. The two main characters try to find a solution, but when it turns out that nothing can be done to avert the doomsday, they decide to retreat and spend whatever time they’ve left together. A concept that’s as simple as it is touching, but there’s also the matter of execution. And oh boy, is it a winding road…
The musical style of Waves Ablaze could be labelled as progressive emo. To simplify, it sounds like Silverstein stacked atop Periphery with a post-metal tinge to it, albeit slower than the first and mostly djent-free.
The Final Revelation is filled with mostly similar but pleasantly melancholic guitar parts with a tangible Bullet For My Valentine influence, which are the album’s main strength. Piano also takes over on several occasions, contributing to the width of the sonic palette as well as to the apocalyptic atmosphere. The bass and drum lines aren’t that interesting, but this isn’t much of a problem when the focus is put on guitars. The instrumental mix is satisfying – each track is given room to breathe, creating a clear, spatial sound much welcome in the post-metal environment.
The vocals are much harder to judge. Haley has a great sense of melody when it comes to both tormented proclamations and conventionally cool emo spewings, and her singing has a nice rough-around-the-edges quality to it. Said quality makes for an additional merit here as it adds layers of desperation and exhilaration to the narrative. Older albums like
The Bridge of Revelations and
Diaries, Vol. 1 (the latter released as Hazelyze) aren’t vocal masterpieces and get slightly arrhythmic at times, but the overall impression is slick. However,
The Final Revelation is littered with a baffling amount of inconsistencies and, as far as I can tell, both Haley and the second vocalist Cameron had their hand in it. The best examples are “Wasteland” and “Mechanism”: the former gets halfway sunk by atonal singing in spite of its phenomenal melodic course, while the timing of screams in the latter is disjointed from the instrumental layer. This series of audiohazards is fortunately over after the first six songs, leaving us only with minor mixing and lyrical issues. Vocal effects are limited to reverb and occasional autotune, save for rare instances of dissonant layering. The most glaring problem stems from uneven loudness levels – the singing is sometimes overbearing and the death growls are barely ever audible.
The tracklist opens with “Wasteland”, a song suffering for the reason already mentioned but one that defends itself on the emotional front. The album’s leitmotif is put simply, but hits right where it should: “if the world will end tonight, just know that I will die right by your side”. This song also showcases
The Final Revelation’s strong melodic assets and its clean, powerful guitar tone. The following “Destiny” has a similar mood, but is more vocally controlled and excellently conveys the sense of anxiety in face of societal collapse. “Deserted” is the first true highlight of the record – a sharp cut driven by anguished screams, with a particularly engaging clean chorus. From now on, the album starts venturing into unexpected stylistic territories. “Mechanism” breaks from the metal mold with D’n’B antics and introduces a staying electronic influence. “Losing Everything” is a much more accomplished change of pace as a purely electronic bit, additionally marking another musical shift. It’s at this point that the two characters realize the futility of their efforts to survive and start approaching a despondent catharsis, conveyed by the album delving further and further into troubled balladry.
“Peace of Mind” is the only song on here that I had any expectations towards, as it is a sequel to the band’s great first single “Dead Inside Like Me”. Part II turned out to work wonderfully both as a continuation and as its own thing. There are subtle callbacks present but the new piece opts for a non-standard structure, and proves more epic and elaborate with guitar leads. Then, we get to another musical beast, “Death of Our Memory”. The album’s penultimate track is also its longest, a waltzy declaration of love lasting a little over eight and a half minutes. This impressive duration is well managed, feeling like a look at a long moment of the pair recounting their struggle and waiting for a shared death.
The Final Revelation ends with a semi-acoustic reprise of “Wasteland” and the ultimate cessation of life. Except for one haunting detail: the protagonist keeps repeating “I died right by your side”, as if unable to fall silent even after their end. The whole world is reduced to one sentence impossibly protruding from a dead lover’s throat into eternity.
Over hundreds of years, countless works of art have utilised the motif of two lovers perishing together. No wonder, as it’s equal parts lovely and tragic, and usually guarantees the story at least some degree of staying power. Such an emotionally potent concept deserves a fine way to convey it. Fortunately,
The Final Revelation does exactly that. It has a fair share of issues, but creative songwriting and mostly competent execution manage to keep it upright. The stylistic experiments certainly make for an interesting ride while the album as a whole maintains a consistently uneasy mood. Could it have been done better? Yes. Is it good as it is? Figure out.
