Dead Summer Society – So Many Years of Longing (2015)

Being huge fans of Death/Doom/Gothic Metal release, we instantly jumped on Rain Without  End Records release “So Many Years of Longing”. This one-man outfit hails from Italy and it delivers some pretty solid barebones music that while it gets a bit repetitive and tiring, has some glimmers of hope.

Building up into “Coldness Gods” via the intro “So Many Years”, all the elements of releases in this genre are pretty well executed, such as the strong riffs, highly atmospheric passages and hearty grunts. Things remind us a bit of Forest of Shadows and Rapture for the most part, with sprinkles of Draconian and such when the female vocals appear on songs like “It Devours my Faith”.

We completely understand that the Death/Doom Metal genre is always slow and methodical, but in this album the band fails to deliver captivating song structures and rather oscillates between the same styles for all 12 tracks in this release. There are a few standout songs like “Some Peace to Feel”, “Winter Day”, and “Desperate Sun”

Some other tracks are a bit chaotic with solid ideas but somewhat questionable execution like “State of Waiting” with its clean vocals and odd tempo changes, but excellent atmospheric elements. However, the majority of solid and enjoyable moments have that certain déjà vu shroud around the as they feel borrowed from other similar bands and never really got us going.

Don’t get us wrong, there are plenty of good ideas some excellent mood-setting instrumentals (“Every Death is Certain”) and while the majority of the songs are decent, we just expected a bit more cohesion and less repetition. Dead Summer Society is a solid band in principle and we can only hope that the next release allows Mist to fully reach his musical potential and deliver more diverse and different sounding tracks.

Band: Dead Summer Society

Album: So Many Years of Longing

Label: Rain Without End Records

Release: March 22nd, 2015

Genre: Death/Doom/Gothic Metal

Country: Italy