Hooves, Leaves & the Death/As December Nightingales

Recently I received the latest release of the Italian Vowels , that was released some time ago (March 2012) by Sun & Moon records. First of all I have to make it clear that this band doesn’t play Black Metal or at least it doesn’t play the “typical” Black Metal that you would expect to listen. Vowels consist of four members, they exist since 2008 and they have released a demo, a split, two EP and a double EP, “Hooves, Leaves & the Death/As December Nightingales”. This album contains two songs released in the EP, “Hooves, Leaves & the Death”, in 2011 and three new tracks that belong in the new EP, “As December Nightingales”, of thirty three minutes total duration.

Vowels’ music is slow with very few fast parts, much melancholic which in some parts becomes depressive while apart from a passage where both the vocals and the riff remind, Black Metal elements do not exist in the album. After listening to the album many times I think their music combines many different orientations of Gothic and Goth-Rock, especially they reminded me a lot of Diary of Dreams, with some ambient and noise elements. The Riffs as we have them in mind don’t exist. Apart from guitar, bass and drums, also piano, violin and keyboards are used. All the instruments are played nicely, they create the dark and heavy atmosphere of the album while they drug the listener easily to the melancholy of the compositions. The vocals are clean, heavy and they remind a lot of Goth-Rock bands. Also in a part there are also harsh Black Metal while in an other part there are female vocals.

The production is clean but dark so as to highlight the feeling and the atmosphere of the compositions. The mix is very good as you can listen to the slightest detail. However I would prefer the vocals to be louder. Generally the sound is quite good and it highlights the compositions. The lyrics are written in English, they use symbolisms and that makes them more dark and mysterious. The topics that the band deals with are death, life, god etc.

Generally Vowels’ music is for people that don’t listen to Black Metal exclusively but they are searching in other dark music genres too. Their album although in many parts we’ll find similarities with other bands of the genre, they have done a quite good job both concerning the compositions and the sound. However those of you who are looking for Black Metal you’d better avoid this.