Saturday, September 20, 2014

The End - you made the rain disappear Review

The End is an experimental raw-gaze project from India.  I have never had any exposure to raw-gaze music before listening to The End but I have become quite fond of some aspects of the genre.  The combination of black metal instrumentation and lulling, dark ambient sections is nothing new to black metal but The End does it in such a way that it feels like you are listing to separate movements of the music.  Delving in deeper to their demo, you made the rain disappear (No, the title is not capitalized, it drives my OCD nuts!), there were some elements that seemed strange and out of place, but the music is all based around being experimental, giving the strange aspects an excuse to rest upon.  

The strange structure to the music really emphasizes the experimentation done within this demo.  At one point, you are listening to a section of music that sounds like post-black metal and before you know it, there is a droning synth line playing and it is quiet and relaxing.  The instrumentation is quite rough and the mix is not up to par with what most want it at.  The drums are extremely noisy and loud, while the guitars are somewhat lost in the background.  You can hear what the guitars are doing for the most part but they do become very quiet at points, leaving nothing much to listen to other than the same pattern blasted over and over on the drums.  The vocals are an extremely odd addition to this music.  At points, they are loud and in the way of letting the music do what it does best.   While the vocals do add a bit to the music, I think The End would have benefited without most of them.  The growls on 'ashes in the wind' are actually quite amazing and fit the style of music perfectly.

 The part that I really enjoy within you made the rain disappear are the ambient sections.  Ambient is something I am becoming quite fond of and I really do see the beauty within it.  The End transfers between metal and ambient quite smoothly and always is able to calm the mood of the music within these quiet sections.  Most of them have an uplifting aspect of them but there are some that sound quite scary, giving the music a good balance in emotions.

After giving this demo a shot, I definitely would listen to more of The End's material.  A band like this will grow and expand with every release, so I am curious as to where they end up going in terms of sound and atmosphere.

6.5/10

No comments:

Post a Comment