William Kopecky is known for his jaunts in the Prog Rock area (Kopecky, Pär Lindh Project and other ones amongst). Now with HAIKU FUNERAL he opens a new and completely different field of music.
Nightmare Painting invites the listener to a journey into the gloomy lands of Dark Wave, Industrial and Ambient. In between Kopecky also knows how to rock, restrained and without sweat so to say. As the album title hints at Nightmare Painting builds a rather dark and nightmarish atmosphere, with an own character. Nasty!
Musically the bass guitar dominates the album, almost continuously distorted, layered with eerie soundscapes and a slightly distorted whispering sprechgesang that reminds me of suspects from the EBM scene. Straight is not what comes in mind. And the drum computer is not tuned in to “dance” either.
No doubt, HAIKU FUNERAL is as dark as fuck but the music does not captivate me. I did not expect sing along refrains and catchy hooks, but nothing gets stuck either. Of course, the bas guitar is played virtuosic and the soundscapes are beautifully dark but all things considered Nightmare Painting remains pale. It is probably the trivial singing, without we would have gotten a first class Horror soundtrack. What remains is a rather spoken word album with a dark orchestration.