Ghost Brigade: Until Fear No Longer Defines Us

Exploring the transition area between sludge metal, doom metal and depressive rock, Ghost Brigade take the listener on a dark musical journey through a musical landscape of melancholy, darkness, longing and desperation on Until Fear No Longer Difines Us.

The opening track 'In the Woods', while a melodic acoustic piece with clean vocals, very much sets the emotional tone of the album with its melancholic undertones. Throughout the album, Ghost Brigade successfully integrate the heaviness of sludge metal with the shoegazing melancholy of depressive alternative rock and also generate a doom-ladden atmosphere associated with doom metal, and – as the icing on the cake – they add a very melodic dimension through the use of, for example, melodic leads, guitar harmonies and other elements inspired by the Gothic brand od doom metal associated with the likes of Paradise Lost. Many tracks like 'Clawmaster', 'Chamber', 'Grain' and 'Cult of Decay' combine heavy, doomy and sludgy part with mellow, but dark, clean guitar passages, and the vocalist makes use of both grungy Alice In Chains-like clean vocals and death growls. And, I must say, it works extremely well – this is music you can really lose yourself in. My personal favorites are probably 'Traces of Liberty' because of its heavy sludge-boogie main riff and 'Breakwater' with its use of atypical and slightly dissonant chords.

In all its heaviness, Until Fear No longer Defines Us is very successful in evoking dark and depressive emotions in the listener, and I really appreciate how Ghost Brigade accesses these emotions, no just through sheer metal doom and gloom, but through importing some of the best element from the more depressive strands of alternative rock from the 90s.

While stylistically quite different from Opeth, Ghost Brigade generate the same type of dark atmosphere, as Opeth, and I think that fans of both Paradise Lost style gothic doom metal, depressive alternative rock, melodic sludge metal and melodic metal will appreciate Ghost Brigade's brand of dark rock.

Track Listing:
1. In the Woods
2. Clawmaster
3. Chamber
4. Traces of Liberty
5. Divine Act of Lunacy
6. Grain
7. Breakwater
8. cult of Decay
9. Torn
10. Soulcarvers

Added: July 21st 2011
Reviewer: Kim Jensen
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 3752
Language: english

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