| Under high pressure Virgin Black embarked on their most ambitious musical
journey so far. Requiem - Mezzo Forte is the first halting-place of the trilogy Requiem.
To make it a little confusing, this is in fact the second volume of the trilogy. Requiem
Pianissimo will be the last piece that the band will release, but is in fact volume I,
containing purely classical music without any modern instruments like electric guitars.
The final volume of the trilogy, will be released secondly: Requiem Fortissimo. This
record will have the heaviest music Virgin Black ever brought out. Expect an "intense
dose of death/doom"! Requiem - Mezzo Forte has probably most in common with
previous Virgin Black releases, with doomy metal, classical instrumentations and operatic
vocals. Besides singer Rowan London the album has a female singer. For the classical
instrumentations (dominated by string instruments like violin and cello) Virgin Black
collaborated with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The result is baffling. What a
wonderful piece of music is this! Even the songs without the heavy guitars are heavy in a
sense. The dark, rousing sound of this record keeps your attention from beginning to end
and stirrs up emotions. And what a beautiful bunch of melodies! Some have a familiar ring,
like the musical theme the song In Death ends with. In fact, the same musical theme
returns only slightly altered in Lacrimosa (I Am Blind With Weeping), where the part
appears near the end as well, now played by guitars (instead of cello).
If the band succeeds in releasing another two Requiem albums with the same level of
professionality and somehow know how to keep some musical continuity (despite the obvious
difference in musical style), this sure's gonna be a magnum opus. Let's wait and hear! |
