THE VISION BLEAK – Carpathia: A Dramatic Poem

The deathship has landed sending out his protagonist into the mystically dark forests of Carpathia where he loses himself in a dramatic story. One year after The Deathship Has A New Captain duo Schwadorf and Konstanz present their sophomore Carpathia: A Dramatic Poem. They go on with their horror stories but the musical realization is different.
Carpathia: A Dramatic Poem gets introduced by an opulent long running intro leading over to Secrecies In The Darkness dominating with mighty horns, strings and spherical keyboard soundwalls. You see: the Shadow Philharmonics got extended personally and musically. Wild and riotous metal attacks and the killer riffs that left the listener breathless but wildly head-banging on the debut are over the hill as well as the narrations. Instead THE VISION BLEAK try to get under your skin, building up an eerie and mystic atmosphere that slowly puts forth the cold fingers to catch the listener. With every song a thrilling tension gets build up, intensifying the aural pleasure step by step, unloading in a final coup on songs such as The Curse Of Arabia, Kutulu! and The Charm Is Done.

Carpathia needs several spins until it unfolds its magic, getting stuck in your ears. But then one can enjoy the entire work. Getting into it deeper and deeper one gets aware of the so typical THE VISION BLEAK riffs and leads (there they are again, the killer riffs) as in Dreams In The Witch-House and The Curse Of Arabia, mighty, haunting, just not that straight into face as they did on the predecessor. My personal little bummer is the female voice of new guest singer. I don’t like it that much. Carpathia has without any doubt its own charm, is another great piece and proves once more what talented musicians THE VISION BLEAK are, but in my opinion, this album doesn’t reach the fascination of its predecessor.
Carpathia: A Dramatic Poem will be released as a normal jewel case version and as a limited deluxe version with bonus CD (which is to order as fast as possible, since the ltd. edition of the Deathship was sold out quite fast).