The German band, playing gothic horror inspired by the fascination with literary and film horror, presented their latest album, Weird Tales . Datûra (PL) played as support
That night we passed together. I know not how she died. I had hoped to share her eternal sleep; but a weird wind entering through the casement rent my dead leaves asunder and scattered them in white ruin upon the pillow. Yet my ghost like a faint perfume still haunted the silent chamber and hovered about the flames of the waxen tapers.
Other flowers, not my race, are blooming above her place of rest. It is her blood that lives in the rosiness of their petals; her life that vitalizes her veins of diaphanous green. But in the wizard hours of the night, the merciful Spirit of the Dew, who mourns the death of summer day, bears me aloft and permits me to mingle with the crystal tears which fall upon her grave.
This suggestive fragment comes from the short story When I Was a Flower (1880) by Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), a writer and enthusiast of Japanese folklore, whose most famous literary work is Kwaidan: Amazing Stories (1904). It is this dark and romantic story that is the leading inspiration for the cover and concept of Weird Tales , the latest excellent album by The Vision Bleak (2024, Prophecy Productions). A beautiful flower is placed in a young woman's hair, and when she dies, the plant shares her death. The scent of the flower remains with the dead woman in her coffin like a ghostly perfume.
Initiated in 1923, Weird Tales is also a pulp magazine from the USA printing fantasy, science fiction, horror and weird fiction novels and short stories. It featured, among others: stories by HP Lovecraft (e.g. The Music of Erich Zann written by the Loner of Providence in December 1921), poems by Clark Ashton Smith (e.g. The Mother of Toads or The Witch with Eyes of Amber) or stories by Robert Bloch. It is therefore not surprising that the dark and eccentric content of Weird Tales became the leading inspiration for the concept of the seventh studio album by the Germans The Vision Bleak, who are famous for their passion for the occult and cinematic and literary horror.
Weird Tales (An Opus of Darkness and Grandeur) itself is intriguing, because it is basically one over 41-minute piece divided into 12 chapters. I have no intention of reviewing this album at the moment, but I have listened to it very often, delighted with its carefully woven dark atmosphere. I will only mention that in the individual compositions of Weird Tales , which make up an exquisite whole, the influences of British doom death metal Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, early death metal Entombed, symphonic black metal Cradle of Filth, gothic rock The Sisters of Mercy clash , symphonic/progressive rock Devil Doll and soundtracks by John Carpenter, director of Halloween (1978) or Fogs (1980).
The Vision Bleak in Wrocław
It was quite a disappointment for me to cancel The Vision Bleak's at this year's anniversary edition of Castle Party. I didn't hide my dissatisfaction, because I was really looking forward to the German concert on the Bolków park stage. Markus Stock and Konstanz, known from the doom/folk metal and neofolk metal Empyrium, decided not to disappoint the band's Polish fans and on November 2, 2024, they performed at the Łącznik club in Wrocław. Of course, I had to be present at this concert, which was arranged in an intriguing way. The Germans gave a total of two performances, preceded by a gig Datûra and separated by an acoustic set by Ellereve .
, the Warsaw band Datûra live twice (on April 14 this year in Warsaw, they supported Americans from Final Gasp, and on September 27 this year, they performed at Minoga in Poznań alongside Everything Is Fire and Obsidian Mantra). In fact, Datûra unconventional (datura, a genus of plants from the nightshade family with highly poisonous and hallucinogenic properties) is not easy to pigeonhole. It is a psychedelic conglomerate of post-metal, post-rock, doom metal, ambient and folk, and all these elements of the puzzle are coherent and perfectly interlocked. Datûra concerts undoubtedly phenomenal. A huge contribution to this is made by the vocalist Michalina Maja Rutkowska, whose singing perfectly balances between delicacy, etherealness, and wildness and aggression. Listen to the single Venom from the debut album Datûra a Obsidian (2024), and you will certainly be positively surprised. Maja is an extremely expressive singer, which was clearly visible at the concert preceding the first performance of The Vision Bleak . I won't hide the fact that Datûra Datûra currently one of the most interesting musical phenomena on the domestic heavy sounds scene, a band worth keeping a close eye on.
After Datûra , and quite quickly, the stage of the Connector was taken over by musicians from The Vision Bleak with the first part of the set, i.e. playing Weird Tales . Schwadorf and Konstanz are experienced artists, so they fluently and skillfully juggled the mood during the over 40-minute concert. Besides, Weird Tales cannot be denied its consistency, fluidity and diversity. There is plenty of brutality and faster tempos (inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's stories The Premature Burial and Evil Dreams Run Deep - here we are dealing with a film inspiration, namely The Witch by Robert Eggers from 2015, a fascinating and evocative horror film, which I recommend watching absolutely) or mournful doom metal (closing the album To Drink from Lethe ). Schwadorf's black metal vocals and Konstanz's clear, deep singing complemented each other perfectly, creating a balance between aggression and melody.
The interlude between The Vision Bleak's was a performance by Ellereve . Elisa Giulia Teschner, performing under the name de guerre, together with two accompanying musicians, played a calm and melancholic acoustic concert that should appeal to fans of Chelsea Wolfe or Emma Ruth Rundle. certainly find a lot of introspective sadness and introverted reverie in Ellereve's , but I couldn't help but feel vocal similarities to the already mentioned Chelsea Wolfe. Although I must admit that Cosmos and The Empty Chair, , are quite moving songs. I think it is worth giving this young artist from Bavaria a chance and appreciating that she creates reflective and ethereal music.
The second set of The Vision Bleak this time included gothic metal songs of the band from the initial period of their work, mainly from the first two studio albums of the Germans: The Deathship Has a New Captain (2004) and Carpathia (A Dramatic Poem) (2005), which was, of course, a tribute to towards the most loyal fans. The Vision Bleak setlist also included single songs from The Unknown (2016) and The Wolves Go Hunt Their Prey (2007). And although many metal bands are inspired by film and literary horror in their work, the Germans do it gracefully, bombastically, symphonicly, theatrically, with a large dose of dark romanticism and mounting suspense.
Participating in their concert is like immersing yourself in the fantastic stories of HP Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe, or like a youthful viewing of some atmospheric horror movie from several decades ago. This is truly pure horror metal - perhaps only the Italian doom metallers Abysmal Grief can match The Vision Bleak in creating an engaging, dense and often ominous atmosphere. For example: I was overjoyed when I heard Elizabeth Dane's instrumental-narrative from her debut live, because I immediately had associations with my first childhood viewing of the famous horror film The Fog (1980) by John Carpenter, when I was scared as hell during that film. Horror cinema enthusiasts will immediately associate the Elizabeth Dane as a 19th-century ghost ship (clipper) carrying the vengeful apparitions of Blake and his crew. In the case of The Vision Bleak, there is no bullshit: Schwadorf and Konstanz love cult horror films and all kinds of amazing stories, and the fruit of their fascination with literary and cinematic horror is the unique gothic horror metal The Vision Bleak.
Setlist: The Night of the Living Dead, Into the Unknown, Carpathia, Elizabeth Dane, By Our Brotherhood with Seth, Wolfmoon, Kutulu!, The Deathship Symphony and an encore of The Lone Night Rider .
Follow:
The Vision Bleak: https://www.facebook.com/thevisionbleak.official
Datûra a : https://www.facebook.com/datura.band/?locale=pl_PL
Ellereve: https://www.facebook.com/Ellereveofficial
