Ravenscru
One Way Out

I'd like to begin this review by expressing my apologies to the label and band for not finishing this review earlier. I've had this album for three months (and listened to it continuously) but due to an insane schedule I haven't found the time to write the review. Because of this I've played this album so many times that… I've honestly lost count but I know without any kind of exaggeration it's well above 50 times. Of course this is not a Hallowed standard to play albums this many times (how would we have the time?), our standard is somewhere between 5 and 15 plays, fifty is a bit excessive. But it comes with a few benefits to hear an album this much. And you can say whatever you want, but try to come with a claim that I haven't given the album a chance or something and you'll just sound silly. I've given this album more chances than any other new album.

Ravenscry comes from Italy, which is a country that recently has become known for its extensive use of opera and classical music within metal. You can call it the home of different forms of metal since everything from folk music in heavy metal to theatrical black have come upon us with a foot in the boot-shaped country. Ravenscry doesn't want to be any different from their countrymen and go for an alternative form of metal - here we have a female fronted band with two guitarists playing seven and eight stringed guitars, the bassist play a six stringed bass and all string benders take credit for programming and all this makes the music feel somewhat progressive and I feel the inspirations are jazz and prog rock rather than traditional metal. In contrast to most female fronted metal bands, this band does however not take after Theatre of Tragedy with a darker voice and a high pitched soprano-ish vocals. Sure, Guilia who does the vocals here vary her voice between high and lower but it's a pretty undramatic sung female voice with a good range and nice pitch.

Lately when I play this album I get the feeling more and more that the album isn't those twelve tracks it's suppose to be but are reduced to three track. There is the instrumental song in the middle, which sounds like something an over ambitious B-film could use to run the credits with. Then there is the song where the chorus begins with two heavy drum beats before Giulia sings "like a wounded butterfly I have tried to fly" a hundred times or more. And last but not least there's another song, which you can hear if you play the video further down. The other songs are either so similar to these or any of them but more likely they are so anonymous that I don't even care or bother about them anymore.

The music is a techno inspired metal with plenty of electronics and ofter over usage of programmings. I'm thinking industrial metal to some extent and then of a band called Scorngrain whom called themselves "cyber thrash". Now, what I'm saying is not that Ravenscry play thrash to any extent at all on 'One Way Out', but there are some "cyber elements". It is well produced, corrected and quite artificial. I don't think this album sound natural anywhere and Guilias vocals are no exception - beautiful, good and clean but in a way that doesn't feel right or really comfortable. It's clean in the same way as hospitals are, if you understand that parable?

Overall I must say that the album in every way is decent and approved. Any album that can stand being played this many times can't be anything but that. However, I've never felt during all the time and times I've played this album that it's particularly good. It has no soul. It's well made, correct, polished, trimmed, programmed and distilled in every corner you can find and I just feel that nothing speaks to me. But there are a few things that annoy me. So when everything is counted for I feel this adventure ends with four H's - right in the middle. A good debut that promise alot for the future as long as they refine their songs to be less sterile. To polish the sound is good, and I love albums with a nice, clean production - but if you do it too much it lose it's soul and feeling and this is the problem with 'one Way Out'. These twelve songs (or are they three?) are all good but lacks charisma and chracter… still I hope to hear much more by Ravenscry in the future.