UK’s The Prophecy celebrate their tenth anniversary this year. Now, the band offers us a new full length record entitled Into The Light, their third one so far. The band operates in the regions of traditional doom metal, so let’s see if they bring something interesting to the table.

 

The songs on this record have good dynamics and variation. The band manages to vary between the traditional dark and depressing doom/death parts, but they also like to play with some more toned down acoustic music, think of stuff like Anathema and Opeth’s Damnation album. Although the eight songs seem well-composed, and most of them are, there is nothing here that really sticks with me. Actually Into The Light becomes a kind of dull listen pretty soon, with some occasional sparks here and there.

 

My main point of irritation is the voice of Matt Lawson. He does both brutal and clean vocals, of which the latter are quite annoying. It’s not like he sings terribly out of tune, it’s just the colour of his voice that annoys the hell out of me. He sounds very winy, like a depressed goth child complaining that nobody loves him. But I guess that is kind of in the setting of the music as well. Yet, at moments his clean voice is not too bad when he holds back a bit, but when he goes all out with it I feel like punching him in the face. Sorry, but that’s all I can make of it.

 

Definitely a disc I’d like to recommend to fans of the more traditional doom/death music like My Dying Bride, Anathema, Morgion and other acts like that. Just see if you can get through the vocals.