REVELATIONS

The Prophecy's 'Revelations' is the British doom bands 2007 follow up album to their excellent 2003 debut 'Ashes'. The Prophecy continue down the path emotionally charged progressive doom laid down on their first album, and in 'Revelations' we find a more refined band with a stronger identity of their own. Musically the band are more creative in this album, there are far more softer parts, complete with orchestral arrangements and a lot more cleanly sung vocal sections. In 'Ashes' the predominant vocal style is raspy death metal, but on 'Revelations' the band aren't afraid to sing cleanly and mix things up a little bit.

Sounds great, right? Unfortunately the clean vocals of Matt Lawson just aren't that convincing. When reviewing progressive doom metal you can't help but think about My Dying Bride, the daddies of the genre. When I compare Matt Lawson to My Dying Bride vocalist, Aaron Stainthorpe, I find the former lacking in range and dare I say it, talent. Matt Lawson's death metal vocals, which are few and far between on this album are respectable, but his cleanly sung vocals are hit-and-miss. Some sections sound good, some sections are rather excruciating for the listener, and detract from the music here.

There are some wonderful musical arrangements and themes on this album. The opening guitar section of 'Odyssey' is fantastic. There are plenty of very memorable guitar riffs and moments through-out this rather long (almost 70 minute) album. The guitar solo in 'Revelations' is delightful with a great tone and simple, but entertaining melodic structure. There are twists and turns and dynamic changes throughout the record.

I would suggest this is a good album, but for whatever reason I've always preferred 'Ashes' to this one, despite the fact that 'Revelations' feels more refined with a stronger identity. I can only put it down to the clean vocals on this album which I feel detract from the excellent instrumental music present on this record. If this album had really strong clean vocals I think it would be a 4-star album without problem, but as it stands 3-stars is as much as I can offer.