Four years in the making, the fourth album in The Prophecy’s decade-plus career is undoubtedly their best yet. Although they’ve long laboured in the shadow of the classic doom triumvirate of My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost and Anathema, their growing stature sees them casting a looming shadow of their own.
Hailing from Halifax – a desolate Mecca for UK doom – they’ve got bleakness in their blood, depression in their DNA, and a very Northern need to vent. Like their predecessors, however, they have the good grace to do it artfully and with style. The five epic slabs of progressive gothic doom herein find the foursome more melodic than ever, predominantly clean vocals and shimmering guitars gracing an intensely introspective, intimate and always emotional journey.
The death metal elements, such as they are these days, are relegated to occasional angry outbursts, metaphorical fists shaken at a sullen sky. The inescapable agony of existence and the way we somehow carry on until we can’t never sounded so sweet.
