The Fateful Hour are back with their second album, following on from 2013’s album All We Leave Behind. It picks up where the previous offering finishes whilst also building on what made it good, and it makes for a very good listen as a result.
All We Leave Behind is a very atmospheric and moving listen, crushingly heavy at times and injected with haunting melodies at others, resulting in a rather ambient and interesting sound. It’s versatile enough to be different to many other melo-doom releases out there, yet it also doesn’t alienate the listener with something entirely new – The Fateful Hour have got the balance just right.
A particularly good inclusion on the album is fifth track The Sunset That Consumed Us. An eight minute adventure and one of the more melodic tracks of the album, it’s a song that will really leave an impression on you when you’ve listened to it. The keyboard lines are especially masterful, really giving the track an extra bit of body and the vocals are very versatile – the juxtaposition of the different styles really works well on this one.
There’s only one thing that is holding the album back on a few occasions and that’s the clean male vocals. At times they’re delivered in an overly forceful way and whilst you can’t fault the enthusiasm and passion that’s clearly going into the performance, it results in the vocals weaving in and out of tune somewhat – if he held back just a little and gave the vocals a bit more support, it would really make all the difference. However as a whole, this is a great listen and proves that The Fateful Hour is really a band you need to look out for.
7/10
