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Band: Lenore S. Fingers
Album title: Inner Tales
Release date: 24 February 2014
Label: My Kingdom Music
Tracklist:
01. Inner Tales
02. The Last Dawn
03. Victoria
04. Cry Of Mankind
05. To The Path Of Loss
06. Song To Eros
07. Doom
08. The Calling Tree
09. An Aching Soul
How many times you listened to an album that you like so much at the very first listen, then you got tired of it and after some time you put it again in the player and again you find what kind of beauty it holds, but then again,... and so on. It happens often to me... This is the case which happened with the debut album of southern Italian band Lenore S. Fingers. This five piece band with an interesting name was formed in 2010 and patiently cultivated the music inspired by the 90s and early 2000 gothic/doom giant albums made by Anathema, Katatonia, Type O Negative, Theatre Of Tragedy and especially The Gathering's Nightime Birds and Mandylion. Now the result can be heard on their debut album titled Inner Tales, which instead of those references is a modern female fronted gothic metal album by all means, yet with a very own note.
A quick look at the front cover artwork brings in mind the one of Katatonia's Last Fair Deal Gone Down, maybe because of the colors and kind of grim atmosphere, but the girl lying on the bed has kind of hope on her face, contrary there is no brightness on Katatonia's one. Yes, there's kind of bipolarity in there that is better expressed within the content. Ok, nine tracks on Inner Tales show a very talented band able to create magnificient music that sucks you into its bewitching, almost fairytale kind of sounds in an instant. Fantastic melodies, catchy refrains, perfective technical guitar riffs and occasional solos, in one short sentence, the instrumental side is a perfect one, even at those rare simplistic moments everything seems at the right place. Many times you'll hear the elements taken of before mentioned The Gathering albums, then there's a lot of atmospheric soundscapes that Anathema were able to create on albums like Judgement or Alternative 4, yet sometimes everything is pretty close to something on Katatonia's Viva Emptiness, or Lacuna Coil's Unleashed Memories, but let's now leave the references aside for good.
Inner Tales is an album full of melancholy and yet is very passionate. When you think that everything will became monotone, the band surprises with some folk insertions, like in the "The Last Dawn" and what a surprise, there are even a couple of acoustic guitar lines that are at the very edge of flamenco, like in "To The Path Of Loss". Not exagerated classical insertions, then even some traditional celtic music hints are both also very welcome and very dynamic song structures allow the listener to easily absorb the album in one grasp. Perfect, sometimes almost too excessive drumming blends so well with crushing bass lines on the fastest parts of the album, yet again keeps the right pace on the most emotional and slow ones. The sound gets its dose of darkness by atmospheric synts that nicely fulfil the musical spectrum. And there's the front woman - singer Federica, who with her very delicate, emotional, sometimes distant and very fragile voice adds the final colour on this picture. Her voice here and there certainly reminds to and must be inspired by the great Anneke Van Giersbergen, but to be truthful she's not there yet, actually not even close. There's not to hide that she really blossoms on the most emotional songs and balladic parts of the album, like in too short conclusive gem "An Aching Soul", but the problem is that Federica, although beign a very good singer, she doesn't always keep the right pace with the others as she sometimes can't sing very well in the most powerful sections, for example in "Doom", but yet that's not really a disturbing thing as from the other perspective it forms a captivating contrast, like in the beautiful soul mover "Cry Of Mankind". Chanting male vocals in the beginning of "Victoria" really do the job and I'll suggest to the band to use this approach more often.
Lenore S. Fingers debut album is one of those very promissing albums that just keeps you in anticipation what's next to come from the band. Not only from musical side, but as well from lyrical side the girl and guys did a good job by writing a story about a girl in never ending solitude, lost between tragic memories of her past and the most unconfortable fears for the future. Every little thing on Inner Tales shows a very devoted band, willing to create something deep and intriguing, thus the result is a beautiful piece of music that shouldn't be ignored. Lenore S. Fingers are in my opinion one of the best female fronted metal bands that surfaced on the scene in the last couple of years, they showed a lot of courage by not just beign one of the many (read: symphonic female fronted metal bands), and took the musical direction that is not really at the top of popularity right now.
Review written by: T.V.
Rating: 8/10
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