The Blue Season
Cold
6.3
I'm going to just say upfront, I'm not the biggest fan of gothic music. I don't hold much against it, but I'm not well versed in it either. The only bands I really listen to that may fall under the category of gothic metal, as The Blue Season do, are Lacuna Coil and old The Gathering. Anyway, onto the review. Cold is a combination of hard rock and metal with very heavy gothic and melancholic edgings to it. Much like Lacuna Coil, The Blue Season has both female and male cleanly sung vokills. Both Natalie Pereira and Oliver Zillich have exceptional voices, but often times the singing comes off as rather cheesy. Oliver's vokills are more to blame for this than Natalie, whose voice I enjoyed much more. This is unfortunate because the music behind is actually quite enjoyable. At times I get a bit of a Katatonia vibe and also some Anathema, and then sometimes just an all out rock feel. Often times the songs are driven by some creative melodies on the guitars. Other times the keys take the lead. I think the tracks I almost enjoyed the most were the instrumentals entitled "Autumn" and "Body in the Pool". A few other standout tracks would be "Release" and "When I Fall Asleep".
In the end I'd have to say that you should listen before you buy this one because this album sounds about par to me. If you really have a thirst for gothic music, there are much better bands out there. The music behind has lots of potential, but the cheesy male vokills are just a bit too much for me after a while.
