Reviews list for October Tide - Rain Without End (1997)

This is one of those albums I’d had on my radar for years, but only just gotten around to. As Death Doom, particularly Melodic Death Doom, is my favorite music genre, I had a lot of expectations for this thing.

Well, 30 seconds into track one, my face contorted into a disharmoniously gleeful smile while listening to the aural form of melodic depression, and halfway through track two I prematurely judged this to be a masterpiece, completely meeting all expectations and more. The incredible part is that the album only grew stronger, the main riffs of “Sightless” and “Blue Gallery” in particular absolutely blowing my mind. THIS was the BIRTH of Melodic Death Doom. This was the origin of the brand of music that had come to be my absolute favorite.

Quite immediately, I began thinking “Damn, these guys really listened to Brave Murder Day and just worshipped the hell out of it.” This was less shoegaze-y and more melodic, but the overall style was uncannily similar. I mean hell, the first track was “12 Days of Rain”… you cannot convince me that isn’t a Brave Murder Day reference! Not that it mattered to me. More of something great = a win for me. I later felt stupid, after 17 listens, upon reading that this was composed by the vocalist/drummer and guitarist of Katatonia. And then I was in awe, because the whole thing was done by JUST those two people. Insane how two people crafted an album better than what full bands can do.

Anyway, to talk of the musical merit… some of the best, most melancholic guitar leads ever crafted. Doomy, yet full of energy and power. Ditto to the drumming, simple but perfectly serving the music, generous amount of double bass. Vocals are harrowing and beautiful. Sparse keys/synths round out the atmosphere perfectly. Lyrics are morose, slightly symbolic and poetic. Perfect album, absolutely flawless.

Without wishing to sound too contentious, I've got to confess to being underwhelmed by October Tide's brand of melodic death doom. Despite believing that Katatonia are not wholly deserving of the amount of adulation that gets heaped upon them, I have to admit that Brave Murder Day is a great record, in my opinion massively aided by the presence of Mikael Akerfeldt's vocals. But this, which is to all intents and purposes the follow up to that record as it was recorded by the majority of Katatonia's BMD lineup, is a bit of a damp squib to my ears. It's a highly polished and melodic album sure enough, but I far prefer death doom with a more sulphurous and fetid atmosphere, a sound that feels lived in and more organic. I don't feel the growled vocals add anything to the sound and in a couple of cases I think the tracks would be far more effective with clean vocals (All Painted Gold for example). The keyboards are lacklustre, seemingly interrupting a track for no discernible reason (the mid-section of Infinite Submission sounds like an ambient bridging track from a second-rate bedroom black metal outfit and interrupts the song just when it's got going). Like BMD this too has a gothic, synthpop track, Losing Tomorrow, that sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of the material on the album as if the band felt we needed a respite for some reason.
Sure, it's not a terrible record by any means and maybe I'm being a bit harsh in some kind of unjustifiably knee-jerk way, but even after revisiting the album for the clan challenge I still stick by my original opinion that this is an overrated release.