Raintime – “Tales From Sadness”
Arise Records from Spain has some ridiculously catchy bands, to make an understatement. Take Raintime, for example, an Italian bunch (I guess, going by the last names, which may not be a good idea) whose Tales from Sadness is good and when it ends I press “play” again. Don’t let the title fool you, this is way upbeat and rocking metal. There is one slower song, “Chains of Sadness,” but it’s upbeat-sad (huh?). The first couple times I heard this I could tell by the overall quality of the music that I needed to hear this a lot. Raintime plays a kind of metal that has one of the broadest appeals possible. It’s rocking, upbeat as power metal or thrash, but it has a certain extra “something” that puts the music in a broader camp. The guitar can sound power thrash and then modern, melodic black/death. The vocals are clean-sung and growled. The clean parts sound traditional. The growling is closer to black metal than anything. If you are open-minded to younger metal bands that don’t care about following the “rules” about not mixing styles, then I can tell you that this is a pretty infectious album. Some people will say that this band is not original or that they play “gay European” metal. The truth is that those people don’t like this type of music and don’t actually listen to it. However, if you listen to this album, if you really listen to it, it’s undeniable that Raintime has made a good, rocking album that’s worth playing over and over again; one that’s a keeper.