Fright Night – The Play of Pain (2010)

In our big digital pile of electronic promos today we discovered this amazing release that makes us wonder why the hell didn’t we listened to this album before. This Fright Night, there are several bands with this name, is a band that hails from Russia, and has a very unique and deeply depressive sound.

With a lineup featuring two super hot girls, one on guitars/vocals and the other one handling the keyboard duties, this is probably one of the few bands that is truly pleasing both visually and aurally The band plays a very interesting Gothic Rock with some Darkwave elements that will haunt your dreams for weeks to come.

The music is downright haunting and it creates a very teatrical/gothic atmosphere very reminiscent of the old school horror movies from back in the day. The keyboards shine through the whole album and while they are somewhat basic, they get the job done magically.

The male vocals are very deep and sometimes might even resemble Lacrimosa (just a bit), there are no growls or screams, just clean bone chilling vocals. The female vocals are used but not abused, and they create a very nice contrast. All songs are in English; something different from most of the Russian bands we have reviewed. The Christopher Lee tribute song is something very interesting we might add.

Marianna Lukyanova (a.k.a Winter) does a very good job handling the guitar duties, and has some very good ‘weeping guitar’ solos like on “Black”. The bass guitar line complements very well the music and is always present, but never getting on the way. The drumming on the other hand is more like a Gothic Rock style drumming with some speed ups. The overall pace of the music is somewhat slow (very Gothic like) and helps with the atmosphere greatly, giving “The Play of Pain” a very bleak and depressive sound.

“The Play of Pain” is probably one of the best Gothic Rock/Darkwave release we have heard in long time. Fright Night captures the essence of Gothic music perfectly and creates 10 haunting songs that will surely be in our day to day rotation.

Release: 2010

Country: Russia