Review of Lacrimas Profundere - Ave End

I sit, sweating; not profusely, but a thin salty sheen that reflects the glow from my computer monitor. In front of me, at the recommendation of this websites owner, is the Lacromas Profeundere album Ave End. The soft blue light forms a wicked smile within its minuscule grooves, a smile beckoning for me to listen to it. I resist, the sweat oozes a little faster. I researched the band, I saw a video for the title track, and I’m scared, I don’t want to listen to it.

“Come on pop me in and hit play”

“No”. I retort. “You will be too catchy for my mortal senses and I will be wearing eye liner tomorrow”

The heavily German accented disjointed voice rebuts with glee. “I Know. Put me in, just once”.

My occupational professionalism begins to circumvent my fear of European Gothic rock as my glistening hand reaches slowly for the glowing circle of light on my desk.

“That’s it, that’s it..my precious”….sneers the disc as my finger clamp around its circumference. I feel its magnetic draw sapping my will, the press releases echoing madly I my head:

“Rock n Sad Music”
“Album of the month”
“Catchy Seventies inspired Gothic Rock”

God help me. Can I resist this fourth album? Will my metalness be sucked from my soul if I listen to it?

My finger, shaking, gently presses the ‘play button’ and the whir of the disc seems to last forever as the laser slowly seeks the first grooves of Uber Gothicness. And so it begins….

Gentle, somber acoustics regale me initially before Christopher Nikolas’s baritone voice, slithers into my subconscious. “One Hope’s Evening” has started my descent. As it ends with emotion drenched warbling, I slump in relief. I have survived, I reach to down check if my manhood is intact, it’s all still there- sticky and arranged like a package of thawed brats.

Then it happens.

Lulled by the soft piano notes, I let my guard down and in an instant the driving, forceful, and….catchy riff of the title track batters down my remaining mental defense, coursing through my Central Nervous System, converting, dominating and destroying. Before I know it, my foot is involuntarily tapping along. I struggle to control is spastic yet rhythmic convulsions, but Nikolas’s Pete Steele-like croons melts my desire to fight. Then my neck soon follows suit, gently bobbing to the pace of the down tuned, robust guitars. Except for my helpless limbs, I’m frozen in place, rigid yet pliable to the music’s crestfallen notes. A single tear runs down my check with precise melancholy, as if aware of my now broken state, it pauses as if giving a thought to my predicament, then carries on to the sobering gait of “To Bleed or Not to Be”, as if drawn by the songs hypnotic, morose tempo.

By the time “Amber Girl”, “Astronatumn”, “Black” and “Evade” assail me with yet more irresistible synth based, ankle snapping Goth rock, I’m a broken man, bereft of thought or self control, only guided by the ‘misery rock’ flowing now unabated into my ears. Deep in my subconscious, I long to hear some Sentenced, as they might cheer me up compared to the depressed, yet affable rock that’s taken my spirit. To ensure my continued state of emotional catatonia, Lacrimas Profundere hammer home their point with the woeful “Come, Solitude”. I feel my wrist beckon the blade, the arteries begging to be opened almost straining to caress the cold steel of my Manowar letter opener.

By some miracle, before the edge meets flesh, I’m awakened by my television, thankfully set on MTV2 and as Agnostic Front’s new video slaps me back to reality, I reel from the speakers, repulsed by my near demise at the hands of this disc. But yet I still hear “Ave End” echoing in the back of my mind….laughing.

Release Details

Lacrimas Profundere

Ave End

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