CD Info

2013

Massacre Records / Germany 
10 Tracks

English Lyrics

This is the second full release from this outstanding Spanish band. They’re originally from the Canary Islands, and not the only big time band from that Atlantic locale. Today, they call Madrid home. The music is symphonic, operatic Gothic, with a B & B slant to it. If you favor that style, this is a must listen, from start to finish. The female lead is one of the finest sopranos working this terrain, one Berenice Musa. Her counterpart is Miguel Angel Marques. Both are outstanding. For me, personally, this is what I came here for. You get it all, metal, vocals, symphonics, some interesting lyrics, solid production, everything but a winning lottery ticket, what’s not to like.

I covered their previous release, Entrance a few years back. It was solid B & B black Gothic with some fine vocals. This one continues that tradition, and, if anything, the Musa vocals are better, maybe a lot better if that’s possible. I liked the lyrics on that last one too, and these continue with the dark and delicious thoughts that the Spanish seem to be very comfortable delivering. I did bitch a little to the band during interactions regarding this release that there were no Spanish lyrics. Their response: "We all listen to bands in English, our ear is already used to this language and we feel it fits better with the music we do. This doesn't mean that in the future there could be any song in Spanish or in another language". With a voice like Musa’s that’s a hope we can only pray to see fulfilled.

There seem to be some common themes to Spanish Gothic. Of course, this correlation may go beyond Spain to include other countries with similar cultural ties, Mexico, for instance. But, the Spanish seem to provide some of the finest sopranos in the genre. My last two releases of the year have been from Spanish speaking countries, Mexico last year and Spain the year before that. Both, like ToM, had fantastic soprano leads. And, the Spanish releases tend to have some top quality male death vocals as well, which makes for some truly interesting interplay to the vocal lines. Beyond that, you tend to get some fine classical backgrounds, symphonics to drive those vocals and tied together with outstanding production. But ToM seems to take a darker road, they live on the left hand path and their music seems to carry us into this world in ways even the Norwegians would appreciate. You can’t listen to this without being taken to the world of the lost, where hope is denied but hopelessness never sounded better. If they ever did this at a Country Western festival, the Tea Party would be doomed. . . not a bad idea, really.

Tales is not as consistent as the last release, which seemed to pound the doom machine eternally. You get that here, but you get some side tracks into other musical devices that can really wake you up from that feeling of morose you got with the last one, not that I found that to be a problem with that release. But, here, they seem to experiment with some musical tricks that make this one even more interesting. GoleM is the big track, I guess, at least in the sense that it is the biggest video. Now, I’m guessing this is the Golem of the "My precious" fame. An interesting idea for a Gothic band, I never saw the dude as particularly Gothic but, new ideas are the inspiration of life. But, the title kicks off in the bold tradition of the band, a dark metal scream from the male vocalist. As the female lead kicks in you experience that solid sound that will drive the entire release. And, lyrically, we catch a few lines that confirm our suspicions regarding who the Golem title is aimed at:

One day revelation / came to the creature
in misty dreams.
Dreamed he was not / executioner of her whims,
free in the end! 
I'm not your Golem anymore! / Don't tell me what to do,
my will now is upon yours./ Heart of clay turned into stone.


Well, no ring but I think you get the connection.

Mermaid and the Loneliness takes us to the beautiful. This one features the female vocal, but includes some spoken male vocals that give it a different dimension. But, the female vocal at the end is unforgettable, especially when Musa takes us to the top of the range. This is what we come here for; no one forgets a sound like that.

Other sounds focus on other musical devices. Vampires of the Sunset Street uses some solid choral works, some great symphonics and some additional devices, a haunting Musa laugh at the end for instance, to make this one stand out. The female vocals again take us to the top of the range, then plunge to the male death vocals which are then joined to give us another sound to enjoy. The message plays with our cultural love of the macabre:


Potion! / Blood! / Fat and Hair!
the burnt bones of the children dead!
A baby girl face behind a window shouts.
The cover-up discovered, garrote for the Vampiress!
No trial or sentence, Black Hand has signed
and never will be known the mystery of her double-life!
Darkest nightmares will come tonight... / and yes, you will yell!

A number of the tracks are of the harder variety. Lost Boys takes us there with a pounding introduction that leads to more solid symphonics. But, the vocals are, again, the show. The story again focuses on things we are a little familiar with, there was a movie called Lost Boys. That may have had some influence, but here we provide a musical vehicle to expand on the concept, they sure didn’t have music like this in the movie. But, our lyrics do remind us of the darkness that we experienced in that cinema...


Somewhere in a Land where the childhood is gone,
The Lost Boys play the game of their lives.
Somewhere in a Land where dreams come true,
The Lost Boys believe all of their lies.
Somewhere in a Land where pain is a game,
The Lost Boys just want to play it again.
Where's the child without shadow?

Of a Raven Born continues this dark direction, both musically and lyrically. Here we get more choral work, something that sets the sound off. But, we again get a male story line, presented as a spoken word, over some heavenly female vocals that lead to thundering sounds presented by multiple vocals. This is the ToM sound, a solid musical vehicle that delivers some of the best female vocals in the genre. And, as diverse and complex as the music is, you’re unlikely to tire of it anytime soon.

And the message, well, it’s pretty simple really. To quote from the band:

"Blood… is the fountain of life…".

10 / 10

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