The Foreshadowing – Seven Heads Ten Horns (2016)

While traditional Doom Metal has been flourishing in the last few years, other sub genres of Doom have been dying off such a Gothic Doom Metal. Luckily for us, today we have the return of Italy’s The Foreshadowing with their fourth full-length release “Seven Heads Ten Horns”. Perfectly balancing Doomy tempos and soundscapes with more ‘upbeat’ Gothic Metal influences, this release delivers over 55 minutes of the band’s highly refined music.

After opening with an instrumental intro, “Fall of Heroes” instantly showcases Marco Benevento’s signature vocals. Perfectly placed in between singers like Ville Valo and Aaron Stainthorpe, his signature style is one of the things that instantly identify the band’s music. The album’s first heavy hitter track is the superbly catchy and moody “Two Horizons”. In this song we can perfectly hear the bands mixture of styles with a very dramatic (and catchy) piece.

Never letting things get dull, tracks like “New Babylon” and “17” feature a perfect mixture of heavy riffs and dreamy atmospheric keyboards, giving the band’s sound quite a diverse range. For those of us looking into darker and more dramatic songs, “Until We Fail” see the band taking full advantage of Francesco Sosto atmospheric keyboards and Marco’s signature vocals, while finishing off with some monstrous Doom riffs courtesy of Alessandro Pace and Andrea Chiodetti.

Saving some of the best for last, the album closes with heavy hitters “Martyrdom” and the 14-minute piece “Nimrod” - one of the bands most ambitious tracks to date. Overall, “Seven Heads Ten Horns” truly showcases the evolution of The Foreshadowing, featuring a very crisp and tighter sound than ever before. The band’s balancing act between genres has reached perfect equilibrium, allowing for the music to truly captivate the listener.

Label: Cyclone Empire

Release: April 22nd, 2016

Genre: Gothic Doom Metal

Country: Italy