Band:	Lands Of Past
Album:	Call Of The Depths
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Jeff

01. Lunalys
02. Il Seme Maledetto
03. God Bless
04. Old Times
05. Fallen Pledge
06. Slave's Hope
07. Call Of The Depths
08. Elevens Swans
09. Corresia
10. Sacrifice

Lands of Past is the band of Asphodel one of the last additions to the line-up of Penumbra. Here this is not some Symphonic Black Metal music that you'll listen to but more some kind of Gothic Metal. Though it's really easy and not particularly good to give this label to this band because Lands of Past is not only Gothic but also really Pop and that's my main problem with this release?

I will not say that "Call of The Depths" is a terrible album, actually all the songs have nice melodies and this is catchy on a side. But I have a real problem with this release and if its starts with a really nice sad acoustic introduction, the following songs are all more or less really poppy. It shouldn't be a big problem, after all a lot of bands have commercial choruses nowadays but I don't know and understand why, I cannot enter into the music of Lands Of Pasts. A bit like with the last Within Temptation, I don't have any good feelings with such music, this is simply a bit too weak to be interesting. I really think that Lands of Past should work on the ambiances of their songs. We have good melodies, this is well done in general but the ambiances which should be a bit darker are too "happy" and pop to be good.

The album is not really well mixed too. Some instruments are a lot more in front of the recording than some others. If the voices of the singers are ok and well mixed, the voice of the male singer, Vince, is not really persuasive and he is event a bit out of tune on "Sacrifice". All in all I think that "Call of The Depths" suffers of a lack of maturity. This is not a bad release but some problems will have to be fixed in the future. Some parts of the music are great especially the melancholic tunes but I hope that Lands Of Pasts will find a better recipe for their future albums.

"Call of The Depths" is just a first album? I mean that Lands Of Past will have to work a lot on their future album to prove that they're a good band but they can still do it, all is not over yet. "Call of The Depths" is not terrible but it suffers of a real lack of maturity. With time I think that the band will be able to be better, they have potential but if you can please stop to do Pop Gothic Metal, you're a lot better than that?