BLACK RAIN - ALBUM REVIEW
Sunderland based. Industrial noise machines Black Rain have been trekking like luddites up and around the good old north of England for a year now, and are finally now coming out with their self-titled debut album. Now, as a journalist with exclusive pre-access, it’s my job to pidgeonhole and pick apart the intricacies of the album until words lose meaning.
BLACK RAIN is an unmistakably dark wave album, sleek, polished and beautiful; however, it’s not perfect. The polish, especially on the guitar throughout much of Side A, is jarring compared to the more gritty Drums & Bass, and doesn’t particularly match up with the monochromatic vocal melody. Side B & the Live recordings do make up for this - they’re exciting - the band is a different beast live. The highlight is Track 8 - Suffer Alone. The Bass is the beast of the band, while the Drums are gorgeously concussive, even though the Guitar is too clean, it’s made up for by the fantastic Idles/Kid Capichi-esque spoken word segment of the song using Epizeuxis and the gerunds “Hurting Dreaming, Wondering Fearing” in the chorus. Unfortunately, Suffer Alone is followed by my least favourite in the album, Dust Tubes, in which the drums are disjointed and the bass is sidelined. It’s a very classically goth tune with Sisters of Mercy lyricism and delivery joined by an early James Dean-Bradfield-esque guitar. I did quite like the denouement, but I think the track overall could have used a bit more spit and shine to make the gears work together just that bit better
Beyond the highs and lows, there is a very solid album here that is full of passion and great ideas, with varying success in their execution. Track 1, Inside, is an excellent opener, while again the guitar is too clean-sounding compared to the rest of the band, the drums are great (reminiscent of the beat from “Howard Hughes” by “The Tights”), and the vocals are exceptional, crafting a strong introductory song. This is followed by track 2 -Save.me, in which the “Joy Division” transmission drumming is an audible directive alongside a lovely commanding bass guitar while the vocals take a low turn. Next up, Satanists- which is a total tonal shift. From the name, I was quite worried that this would be a bit too open-handed, straight-shooting, but I was pleasantly surprised by an intelligently written song on contemporary affairs in which the Guitar is gritty and phenomenal, and has the most powerful guitar parts of the whole album. It is clear to see that the group are talented, passionate and powered by otherworldly forces.
Overall, Black Rain’s debut deserves a solid 7/10 - if I had to equate them to a genre, it’d be Nu-Goth. There’s a lot of bands going around right now with a similar style that have all cropped up individually of each other, Post Ironic State, Voodoo Twins, Black Rain and most famously Vision Video occupy this new space of gothic rock that combines heavy drums with classical gothic influence and clean(ish) guitar tones for better or for worse, but regardless, there’s exciting proliferation happening and I’m eager and waiting for the next goth stars to peer out like fruit bats in the night- and those Gothic Stars could very well be drenched in Black Rain
The album releases on the 14th of July. You can find Black Rain playing live at the following dates & locations
26/9 - FIRE STATION - SUNDERLAND
4/10 - CARPE NOCTUM - LEEDS
1/11 - SHADOW FACTORY - WHITBY GOTH FESTIVAL
THEY’RE ALSO ON THE HUNT FOR SCOTTISH DATES AND VENUES, SO PROMOTERS - GET IN TOUCH WITH THEM HERE
