Oceans Of Slumber - The Banished Heart - review
Oceans Of Slumber - The Banished Heart - review
Tracklist
01. The Decay Of Disregard02. Fleeting Vigilance
03. At Dawn
04. The Banished Heart
05. The Watcher
06. Etiolation
07. A Path To Broken Stars
08. Howl Of The Rougarou
09. Her In The Distance
10. No Color, No Light [feat. Tom Englund]
11. Wayfaring Stranger
A review by
RaduP March 25, 2018
Most of you are probably familiar with them, considering how much attention Winter, their previous record, has received. Winter was great, but it did have its shortcomings, mostly as far as the flow of the album was concerned, but not limited to that. Now, the band has released The Banished Heart, and it seems like they overcame their flaws.
Oceans Of Slumber were already flirting with extreme metal influences on previous records, but on The Banished Heart they are brought more to the forefront and better executed. We get to hear many more growls and blast beats as a consequence. While the compositions are not overly intricate, the instruments (and the vocals) weave into each other, creating some powerful contrasts, especially against Cammie Gilbert's sultry vocal performance, arguably the main focus of the album, or at least it should've been had it not been slightly buried in the mix.
The album works much better as a whole, losing many of the flaws that Winter had, like the placement of that "Nights In White Satin" cover. The Banished Heart has a cover on its own, this time of a traditional folk song, "Wayfaring Stranger", but this time fittingly placed as the closer. Right before that, though, comes the album's emotional climax, a duet between Gilbert and Tom Englund of Evergrey fame. All throughout the album, both the songwriting and the performance are much more effective at conveying the album's emotional journey. Sure, the 65-minute-long trip might get a little tedious and it does have some moments like "The Watcher" that feel like they take up too much space, but more often than not, these fainter moments serve to give it's album a less monotonous pace.
The Banished Heart fulfilled most if not all hopes that Winter created. One can only hope for an even better follow-up, but, for now, The Banished Heart is Oceans Of Slumber at their most emotional, inspired, and consistent.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 10 |
| Songwriting: | 9 |
| Originality: | 9 |
| Production: | 7 |
Comments
Comments:
7
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About reaching their potential, I completely disagree. They did worked out the flaws that Winter had but with a very high price. They lose all the "surprise" and some of the Awesomeness that Winter had. Personally I prefer a fantastic far from perfect release than this one, a close to perfect, but not so special album.
---- #MetalIsForEveryone
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Posts: 9626 Written by Nick Carter on 27.03.2018 at 18:41 For you
---- Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking One day there will be no heart at all?
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Posts: 260 Written by RaduP on 27.03.2018 at 23:05 Not for you 
---- #MetalIsForEveryone
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I'm still trying to figure out this album. I mean, I like it, but there's also some of it that drags, like you touched upon in your review. So, I agree with that. I think that's mostly its flaw for me. But I still need to listen to it a bit more to form a more coherent opinion. The track with Englund is certainly one of the highlights. Not sure I prefer it to Winter though.
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"The Banished Heart fulfilled most if not all hopes that Winter created." OK. Alright. I'm pumped. And a duet with Tom Englund? Yeeeessssssssss. But..... ahem. Their Nights in White Satin cover is a thing of pure beauty and actually outdoes the original for me. There is no improper placement of that song anywhere ever at any time ever ever. 😃
---- "A life all mine Is what I choose At the end of my days" --The Gathering "A Life All Mine" from Souvenirs
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