Band's List Gothic Doom The Foreshadowing Oionos

Three years after “Days of Nothing”, the Italians from The Foreshadowing are back to reclaim the success they were predestined to gain ever since the release of their spellbinding first record. The debut entwined in one single place everything needed in order to meet the criteria for a shocking mix between doom and gothic high class sound standard, straying away from all the boring tendencies of the genre. With a captivating cobweb of thick sound, weaved from heavy riffs, beautiful cosmic keyboard passages and one of the richest and most emotional voices nowadays, the band placed a request for something that surpassed all mass expectations and created the perfect basis for a promising career.

“Oionos” is the title which The Foreshadowing use to continue their legacy today. Just like the one from its predecessor, it is not chosen at random – coming all the way down from Greece, the name of the new opus of the doom metallers translates as “omen”. An ill sign that bodes no good at all, judging by the oppressive mood crystallized in each sound of the record. For a second time in a row, the band relies on a loose concept story, which mystery vests into an epic music that sounds even more complex than the spirit of “Days of Nothing”. From the artwork of their second apocalyptic apotheosis there’s a face gazing towards us, a face corroded by the horrors of war, hate and everlasting desire for (self)destruction, which the artistic creativity of Seth Siro Anton surrounded by vultures and skeletons. This is the “portent” of The Foreshadowing – the musicians play an ominous soundtrack of a symphony for the fate of all people living in a ghostly black and white world which soul had been torn apart by its own inhabitants who now live a questionable life, lurking between madness and death.

The album opens with the marching sounds of “The Dawning” where the frontman Marco Benevento (How Like A Winter) uses his deep, velvet-like voice as one of the few survivors, responsible for the global tragedy. The elegant melody of “Outsiders” portrays a picture of pathetic remains of a society dwelling in its memories without any sense of purpose just like aliens in a world that once belonged to them, while Seth Siro (Septic Flesh) summons the vultures for one last bloody feast with an archaic Greek chant. The black chemistry between the riffs of the two guitarists and the keyboardist Francesco Sosto reminds of the golden era of the titans Paradise Lost – the organic sound of “Fallen Reign” is followed by a mournful Gregorian choir in the interlude “Soliloquium” before the threnody “Lost Humanity”. The meridian of the album takes place during the eerie minimalistic sonata “Survivors Sleep” and over those seven minutes spent with “Chant Of Widows” – a gloomy tale based on memories of war, violence, alienation and loss, all that being a part of a doom anthem created for glory and adoration. Firm riffs and rhythmic drum staccato in “Hope. She’s In The Water” take us back to 07.12.1941 and culminate into a ceremonial hymn to Armageddon just before Marco’s voice fades under the sounds of Roosevelt’s speech taken from his declaration of war after Pearl Harbor. The enchanting features of the cover “Russians” (in original by Sting) give us one final inmost moment before the post-atomic words of Oppenheimer in “Revelation 3-11” which enter history as a death-motto of the heroes of this tragic scenario: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.

“Oionos” encapsulates an entire collection of heavy sound, brilliant melody and somber emotions, capable of changing the world as we know it and to write down the name of the most probable candidate for the doom metal album of the year in the meanwhile. The music in the second creation of the dark Italian prophets keeps shining in the eternal night as a star through a pitch-dark mist of clouds and radiation dust, remaining as a lonely guide on the way to humanity’s last downfall.