Review of The Green Evening Requiem - Self Titled Demo

I could do many things with this review, but I’ll start by talking about the things that I can’t do. I cannot pretend to know the history of The Green Evening Requiem. Nor can I assign this group a genre. If there were ever a group in need of the kind of quick labeling we do these days with music, The Green Evening Requiem would be it, but I am not willing to take that plunge. However, I can say that this is metal through and through. Progressive? Probably. Core? Maybe a small percentage in the vocals. Technical? A little bit, but certainly not showy. The rest is really up to you to define after giving the group a listen, but if you’re like me, you’ll find the guitar tone a bit like High on Fire and the ambience somewhere in the Katatonia school of depression.

If you have your wits about you, the first thing that you will notice is the production, which was either consciously garage sounding or consciously wallet-saving. Either way, it serves to accentuate the metal jam-band vibe I feel. Don’t get the wrong impression here, though. These guys aren’t Mastodon. The music here is more depressing, with less crunch. In fact, the uniformly melancholic element throughout limits the music’s accessibility to an extent. This isn’t the kind of album you’re going to be playing in front of anybody else. An album like this becomes your best friend over time, the kind of CD you’ll turn to when you’re in a more introspective mood or you just feel like chilling out. Finding tracks to single out is difficult given how solid this nine song self-titled debut has proven to be, but I found myself listening to “The Shadow Rift” the most, probably because it’s so definitive of the hybrid sound I’ve talked endlessly about already. If progressive, sped-up and heavy doom rock were a coined term, I would have used it in the opening line, but it makes more sense when specifically talking about this song.

What’s most surprising to me is that four guys around my age (early to mid twenties) could get together and produce something so subtle and hard to pin down. It’s so much easier to pull hair, scream, downtune to all hell, shit on stage and insult the intelligence of audiences while beating them over the head with third-grade gimmicks, yet these guys make it their aim to win people over with truly seductive music, and that is what will impress here. Something tells me this won’t be the last time we’re impressed by The Green Evening Requiem.

Release Details

The Green Evening Requiem

Self Titled Demo

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