Revelations Of Rain



2007 - Marble Shades Of Despair

Reviews:

Burning Misery
(april 2008)
(4/5)

Russia is a place of cold and darkness. Their music isn’t much different. Revelations of Rain come from Russia and deliver to us a brand of evil doom metal that rivals some of today’s best doom metal bands! All lyrics are written in Russian and the music itself is just down right depressing. It’s fucking great! “Marble Shades of Despair” is exactly that, a trip into the deepest and darkest soul of sorrow. If you’re going to commit suicide I suggest playing this album because it will show you the way! Revelations of Rain combine beauty and passion with a deep doom metal sound and a saddened feel. There are eight songs totaling 55 minutes of pure doom ridden sound. You will not bee disappointed at all. Every song has it’s own depth of doom and every song brings the listener closer to their music. Songs like “one of the Winter Days”, “December”, and “ Rain” gives you a good shot at what Revelations of Rain are made of. The members of this band come from another doom metal act named “Ocean of Sorrow”. They wanted to create something different, something mature, but completely doom. They have done just that with “Marble Shades of Despair”. The name of the album pretty much describes what you’ll be listening to throughout the whole album! Fans of My Dying Bride Swallow the Sun, and early Cathedral will enjoy this release very much.


Reviewed by: Alex

The Metal Observer
(march 2008)
(7/10)

Podolsk, Russia. Two of them are the main band members, as all the band photos I’ve seen (which is admittedly not many) features only two guys. These two are separatists from OCEANS OF SORROW. “Mramornye Tona Otchayaniya” (“Marble Shades Of Despair”) is their first album and has been out for a while now on Solitude Productions, Russia’s fastest growing Doom label. Biographical information is scarce, so that’s about the best I can do.

The band plays a highly melodic form of Doom-Death, but not the romantic kind where you’d find female vocals and violins. Rather, when you do rarely hear a vocal, it’s Alexey Nasonov snarling or growling. I’m reminded on one hand of the eleventh month Doom bands (NOVEMBRE, NOVEMBER’S DOOM), in that OTROVENIYA DOZHDYA is melodic and dramatic while also willing to through in some grindingly slow passages (as on “Zakata” [Sunset] and “Odin Iz Zimnikh” [One Of Winter Days]). On the other hand, the guitar work has a quality that reminds me of SKUMRING, which is certainly a compliment to Ilya Remizov and Vladimir Andreev. They’re not quite as good as the Norwegians, but the jeremiad tones these guys lay down are quite something. The material is sorrowful and sometimes quite splendid.

But there are still the ever-present problems associated with debut albums. The songs are long, only one under six minutes. This fits in with the genre’s conventions, but not always with the song writers’ abilities. Look no further than “Rekviem,” for instance, which ends up repeating itself far more than it should. Most of the songs close with extended instrumental parts, where the guitarists really shine (and when Nasonov must be a bit bored in life shows) and it’s here where they can run out of ideas.

Promising band, absolutely. If you like your Doom-Death with melody, but don’t want a lot of theatre, OTKROVENIYA DOZHDYA is certainly a band worthy of closer inspection. If it’s not necessarily you’re genre, the band still needs another album or two on which to grow. Call it a mild recommendation.


Reviewed by: Keith

Chronicles Of Chaos
(january 2008)
(8/10)

I do not have a problem with bands releasing albums in their own language, as it is frequently better than the dubious pleasure and unintended humour of badly broken English lyrics. Otkroveniya Dozhdya (Revelations of Rain) are no different from many other Russian acts in singing in their native tongue, but unlike most other projects the band name and title is not rendered in the Latin alphabet anywhere on the album -- everything is written in the impenetrable Cyrillic alphabet. C'mon guys, surely you could have provided a name in English as a concession to us Anglophiles?
Revelations of Rain perform melodic death/doom on _Mramornye Tona Otchayaniya_ ("Marble Shades of Despair"), too oppressive and bonecrushingly heavy to fall under the romantic radar, yet too light to be considered funeral doom, comfortably straddling the two extremes of deathy doom with a delicate balancing act of aggression and melody.

They are not the only or even first band to attempt this balancing act, but are one of the few to avoid falling into gothic melodrama. Not that their music isn't dramatic, merely that it doesn't rely on tired dark pop conventions, but rather on the combination of crushing riffs and soaring keys to create a depressive ambience, whilst their use of melody provides an accessibility without depleting its mournful nature. There are strong similarities with a certain English doom band, but I suppose that comparisons are inevitable regarding a band at this stage of their career performing the music they do.

However, their songs do tend to meander a bit unnecessarily, even accounting for the conventions of the genre, thus losing some of their bite and becoming a tad repetitive. Despite this, it remains an above average and welcome entrant to Slavic doom.


Reviewed by: Quentin Kalis

Vampire Magazine
(december 2008)

Past members of “Ocean of Sorrow” are now back with a new project of their own: Revelations of Rain. The songs are rather mid-tempo, relying on dream-like keyboard passages, heavy guitars and both grunted and spoken vocals: a classic mix of mid-tempo death/doom metal with gothic elements in the vain of My Dying Bride and Mourning Beloveth! Expect very promising tracks that are both, beautiful and hauntingly melancholic, as well as well-composed and recorded.

At 55 minutes and counting but 8 songs, the rather lengthy tracks (quite inevitable for a doom-metal band) do not give birth to anything out of the ordinary; this is not something completely fresh or new. Plus the tracks are somewhat repetitive where the same elements – mid-tempo paces, heavy guitars, grunts and atmospheric keyboard passages – keep recurring. However, the album seems to have grown on me; it’s been spinning for some time now on my good old player (and on this cold and bleak December night, it’s been delighting me with its suiting and positively agonizing warmness). It is with certainty that I can say: this is an album which will definitely appeal to any doom-metal fan!

Take the opening track, “One of the Winter Days,” a track filled with passion and despair that starts off slow (keyboard solo) and then moves into a heavier passage (one of the heaviest moments on the album) which quickly makes way for a mid-tempo beat that sounds quite traditional death/doom metal. This track is one of my favorites on the album (along with the next track, “December” and “Condemned to Be Silent”), for its diversity and intense melancholic emotions. “Paths of Doom” is possibly the heaviest track on the album. Starting off with a keyboard passage (performed by Olesya Muromskaya), the track speeds up, where grunts are even mixed with black metal shrieks. Another track worth mentioning is “Condemned to Be Silent.” This track is heavily driven by the beautiful guitar bits and is accompanied by both choral-sounding keyboard parts and clear piano pieces. It is a track where the guitar playing (done by Ilya Remizov) is possibly shining the most.

“Marble Shades of Despair” was recorded at Uzkaya Tropa in March-August 2006 and is the beautifully composed masterpiece of Olesya Muromskaya and Ilya Remizov – who’ve played all of the instruments as well as the vocals on the album (a session vocalist, Argasor is also present on the album). The lyrics are all in their mother tongue: Russian. This is one debut album that will surely blow any doomer’s mind away! If you’re into old My dying Bride, Mourning Beloveth or Swallow the Sun, be sure to check this release out.

Reviewed by: Randall Ras