Heavenwood
Tarot of the Bohemians - Part 1

Occult Emotive Metal, it seems the number of metal genres is ever-growing – or is it the way of describing a genre that outweighs the fantasy of the genre itself. The band Heavenwood is a Portuguese band and this year they are releasing their fifth album twenty years after the release of their debut album. It is much from the Tarot deck on this album that from the outside doesn’t look all that exciting, but at least you instantly know that they will offer you quantity with seventy minutes of music on thirteen tracks. All this seems fine but maybe you wonder why a band only releases five albums over a twenty year period and that wouldn’t be such a bad question, one reason might be that they disbanded for ten years following their 1998 release Swallow. Now they are back with the same label as they started out with twenty years ago.

Gothic metal is really what it is all about, with an occult theme but their style isn’t that far from the general style of the gothic metal genre. It is kind of dark themed, the vocals are darkish and many times quite raspy, not the most lovely of voices so to speak. The sound is good and modern but also quite average for the genre and I wouldn’t say that there is anything timeless about this album. The variation through the songs is good albeit not quite good enough to keep the average listener interested for the entire time the album plays. It appears as though they target fans of the genre and their own fans, it isn’t really a genre with that wide an appeal.

I think they are good, their music works fairly well and fans will most certainly find it very agreeable. It has some great tracks, something that it is really impressive but I still think that the overall feeling is that the album is too typical of the genre and doesn’t stand out enough for me to really take notice. They push the buttons the fans like to have pushed but not the buttons a critic like this one would like to have pushed. Sure, I will not dismiss this album as it is quite good but I fear that in these cards there is no future of me owning this album but they also state that those getting the album won’t be disappointed. It is a pretty good album, plain and simple.

It is a bit too long an album and not stylistically interesting enough for me to bring out the book of superlatives. There are however some tracks that deserve some of these superlatives, like the one called The Priestess which is a great track. I also find The Empress and The Lovers great tracks, so there are three tracks that makes this album almost worthwhile. So in the end I find this album decent enough, a bit long and not as good as it is in the greatest moments – makes me wish for part 2, hopefully that builds on the best and is a bit shorter and more dynamic.

HHHHHHH