Revelations Of Renounced (Stygian Crypt Productions)

 This Russian quintet defines their music as Folk/Doom Metal, a pretty innovative concept by the way, but a little pretentious I think; the music of Amber Tears could be easily labelled as Melodic Doom Metal, with some slight traces of bands such Amorphis, Katatonia and Anathema. The melodic sound is definitely what the band does better, creating beautiful nature inspired atmospheres with an accurate conjunction of ethereal keyboards and electric guitars. The whole music is very enigmatic and melancholic, and it’s constantly balanced by some occasional pretty joyful folk inspired passages, just listen to the fourth track, “Under the Fields of Ages”, one of the strongest points of this record, a completely melodic, folkloric still metallic piece… I think only this track justifies completely the term “Folk Doom” at this release… The voices here deliver an obscure feeling, with a blend of deathly grunts with some sporadic clean vocalization adding a quite soothing aura. The whole album consist in eight tracks of highly melodic and introspective Doom Metal full of ghostly atmospheres which will drive you through autumnal landscapes of languid beauty. The whole autumn inspired sober artwork is completely professional and fits perfectly with the whole album’s sound, the lyrics are included, but sadly are only written in Russian, I couldn’t find the translation anywhere else, so I guess the lyrics will by a mystery for the non Russian spoken audience… at least for a while. “Revelations Of Renounced”, even though is a fine and well executed work, inevitably falls into redundancy, each track could be different from the rest, but there’s nothing in this album you haven’t heard somewhere else. Anyway, this album shows a huge potential (let’s not forget this is their debut album), tracks such “Under the Fields of Ages”, or, in minor measure, “On the Way of Shadows” completely proves it… (AP)