A Secret Revealed: The Bleakness

A secret revealed isn't a secret anymore. Surely it then becomes a statement? The latter being something Germany's A Secret Revealed seem desperate to make. Maybe too much so. Through The Bleakness what this lot also seem at great pains to point out is that everything's shit and what may not be shit, sucks, although if it doesn't suck, this lot will sure as hell still find a way to tear themselves apart in despair over it. Don't take this album out for a summer's drive, don't play it to your significant other half to lighten the mood, in fact only play it if the world is dark, black, empty and yes, bleak. Too bleak, for while musically this bunch of carefree happy-go-luckers paint atmospheric backdrops from which numerous different ideas could spring forth (they don't, but they could), vocalist paul motz will quickly dismantle it through single note expulsions of anger that actually sit close to metal core, just without the tunefulness – not even that off-tunefulness that so permeates modern singing.

He isn't 'bad', per se, but the one dimensional approach he (and much of the otherwise convincing sounds hammered out with conviction here) is so angry, so lacking in hope, that the maelstrom stops having any impact whatsoever. Instead the wave after wave of (the) bleakness can begin to sound more like background music. And it's a shame, for in here somewhere is a decent album with songs pretty well structured and undoubtedly crafted. However in the eagerness of "To Have A Dream Is To Be Cursed", "Lay My Memories To Rest" or "Avoid The Light" to convey the hopelessness that is unarguably this album's raison-d'être, their sheer unrelenting nature causes you to disengage and sit in your thoughts, ignoring the soaring guitars that do often appear, or the sparingly applied synths.

To be fair to A Secret Revealed, The Bleakness is their first offering and there's much here to suggest that if they can step away from desperately having a 'message', they'll ultimately conjure something of real value. That they don't here is where the real depression resides. Still, there's plenty bleak promise, so maybe next time the secret won't be so blatantly let out of the bag.

Track Listing
1. Until Grief Disappears
2. The Veil
3. Avoid The Light
4. Below The Weight Of A Mountain
5. To Have A Dream Is To Be Cursed
6. Drowning
7. Shards
8. The Abyss
9. Lay My Memories To Rest
10. The Longest Days

Added: January 24th 2016
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: A Secret Revealed on BandCamp
Hits: 1925
Language: english

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