Review Summary: Autumn falls.
Generally, when gothic rock/metal bands prepare for their next album, they claim that it will be their heaviest and/or darkest effort. In preparation for Autumn’s next album, however, they stated that they were, “stretching out to more progressive musical genres”, and also, that their sound engineer, “envisioned a more vintage approach for Cold Comfort”. This was not comforting. They had already tried a prog influenced, yet gothic affair in
Altitude, a failed combination in their hands. It sounded like they couldn’t decide what they wanted to be, a prog band, or just another gothic rock pretender. Therefore, it was wildly inconsistent. It was also fairly average music, and it wouldn’t take much to make Autumn a boring band. In fact, it would take this album,
Cold Comfort, for them to finally, and completely, dive off the deep end into an empty pool.
Cold Comfort sees Autumn trying a new genre, progressive rock, which is exactly what they wanted to do. Although this seems like a bad idea at first, it turns out that this direction actually suits the band. They were trying too hard to rock in their previous album, but such a thing shouldn’t have to be forced. Therefore, their new, completely chill, and void of metal direction, makes total sense. Even Marjan’s vocals fit this role perfectly, since her singing was never especially loud. With less forced aggression, their music is sounding as peaceful as their band name suggests. In the season of Autumn, I’m fairly certain that leaves fall off trees noiselessly, rather than finding the nearest gun and firing it at the bastard tree.
The band certainly had the right idea with this new direction, but unsurprisingly, it doesn’t pay off. They said that they have taken leaps outside of their comfort zone with this album, but those leaps are more like baby steps. What they consider vintage prog rock actually sounds closer to radio friendly, adult-oriented alternative rock. In other words, it’s pretty boring. What boggles the mind, though, is that this band could easily do better. We hear potential in the track ‘Naeon’ which claims a hurricane of riffs, and even in the more gothic, and heavier song, ‘The Scarecrow’, but apart from those, the album is completely forgettable. It turns out that the switch to prog rock is the worst thing that the band could have possibly done. Unless they get their act together, no one will be listening to this band any time soon.
