ALBUM REVIEW: Final Snow – The Stars Have Fallen

Today a review from the depths of the DSBM underground, American solo project Final Snow’s 7th full length album.

1. Introduction features some wind samples and fairly simplistic piano setting the necessary sombre melancholy this type of music should have. The ambience is really enjoyable and it is a pleasant way to introduce this kind of release (while not overly ambitious, it works well).
2. Sorrowful And Old Woods Of My Youth comes straight in with lo-fi guitars, programmed drums and shrieked vocals, all the hallmarks of the genre. There is a resemblance to bands like Xasthur and a really unique range of vocal effects used with a strange sort of reverb to them. The songwriting is pretty good, with fairly standard riffs used that create the trance-inducing state the genre is great it. The drum programming is a bit rough around the edges, but certainly not the worst I have heard. The sense of atmosphere and sorrow set with the intro going straight into this worked really well and overall it is an enjoyable piece of music.
3. Hospital Halls Echo My Screams Forever comes in with clean guitars that sound really nice, there is a feel of bands like Cheerful Depression to the song which I really like. The vocals are really powerful and emotive while the backing remains simple and repetitive (which in many genres would be a criticism, but with DSBM it is definitely fitting). The song as actually really good, certainly worth a listen. The strange mix of ambient piano which is quite blocky over the walls of guitar noise and vocals sounds killer.
4. Shadows Lurk In Her Congregation opens with some pretty harsh noise, it works to create a sense of dread and discomfort in the listener. The song is more of an experimental piece, with that said, it is actually really cool and a unique twist to the album.
5. Worthless World – Take Me Away opens with a lot of double kick programming and more low register riffs, the howls are pretty intense and the song once more takes us down the familiar road of a lot of US based DSBM. There is plenty of dissonance and familiar tones set by other artists here. Good work on this one, really nice a gritty with despair fuelled riffs taking the lead. The outro has a real Vanhelga vibe to it, awesome stuff there.
6. Bleak Nights Alone opens with some really beautiful chord based indie feels, a certainly pure sounding track which fits nicely between such filthy Black Metal. The really low production quality assists the songs darkened feeling. The more distorted tones creep in very nicely. Overall the artist clear respect for other bands like Striborg make this a noteworthy piece of Depressive Black Metal, with an unmistakable melancholia throughout, but also some more Doom Metal influenced riffing about halfway through which was an interesting turn.
7. The Wolves Cry Out In One Last Howl is quite short, taking the wolf howl samples and ambience into a sort of interval piece. This type of soundscape the artist has played with throughout really break the album up nicely and certainly give it more originality.
8. Gates To The Abyss Of Suicide kicks straight back into things, with more upbeat drumming and classic Black Metal riffs, the vocals remain reverb and delay soaked with such a haunting feel to everything going on. The punch of this song is greater than the others but with a pretty gorgeous feel to the instrumentals and the vocals being used more as an instrument than in the foreground. The low production quality isn’t easy on the ear, but if you are used to this kind of thing (which I certainly am), it is pretty enjoyable. The ending once more dips into the ambient beauty mentioned before.
9. Conclusion (To My Life) is the final piece, closing how the album began, with piano and really well written music. A beautiful ending to a pretty decent album.

With the territory of the genre I was expecting the basic drums and production, the strong atmosphere and depressive feel are very well executed. The release is not the most original, but the solo project certainly works very well with what it has, and creates a nice listen throughout. Maybe not for the average Metal blog reader, but you raw music and DSBM fans may want to give this a listen! -7/10