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Mercury Rain - St. Matthieu review



Reviewer:
8.5

8 users:
7.62
Band: Mercury Rain
Album: St. Matthieu
Release date: August 2004


01. Tales From Beyond
02. Sanctuary
03. The Messenger
04. Shadow's Scent
05. Chimaera
06. Sortiléges
07. Eldritch Minor
08. Heaven And Sunset
09. St. Matthieu

Mercury Rain is back, and while many of you are not familiar this band, I do, I reviewed their debut album like a year ago, and I was greatly surprised by the quality of their work, now time has passed by and I have in my hands their new album.

First, they have improved their already good taste for cover arts, since the cover art for St. Matthieu is truly great, really inspiring, the booklet and internal layout is quite good also, but the good part comes in the "thank you" notes in the booklet, since we have a mention! Yep, the band thanks various webzines and magazines were Metal Storm is included, it seems they liked my review!
Also, forgot to mention that the limited edition of the album comes with a DVD featuring live and promotional material from 2003-2004, like a video of the song "Shadow's Scent, photo gallery and some live presentations, a great bonus if you ask me.

Anyway, musically Mercury Rain follows the same path as before, but their sound is enriched and the songwriting is very mature, they grown as musicians and the creative element has improved a lot in this new record, they still have some mellow parts, and they've added some aggression, thing I remember was lacking in their prior work.

They call it Symphonic Dark Metal, I call it Gothic Power Metal, the thing is that in this new album Mercury Rain has become more heavier and darker, without loosing the roots in which their music lies, take for example, opener song "Sanctuary" starts with a choir and heavy riffing, saying, "this time things have changed!" and yes they have, next song has to be my favorite song of the album, "The Messenger" is the most aggressive song of Mercury Rain, and this is because they added some male vocals in this one, raspy vocals does wonders in this track, I'm not sure exactly who does them but I'm open for more of that!

Shadow's Scent" is a Mercury Rain classic, a great song with that Gothic touch that the vocals of Sonia Porzier gives to the music, songs like "Chimera" and "Eldritch Mirror" are also great tunes that prove one more time that this band has matured a lot. Epic closer, the title track "St. Matthieu" is an excellent way to end to the album.

Mercury Rain is a band that is improving with each release, and I know they'll keep releasing quality stuff and giving us surprises, now the question that lies beneath is, When does these guys are going to sign to a label? They say they prefer to work independent, so I'm begging to see which label lures them into a juicy record deal.

Written by Undercraft | 11.11.2004





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