AVATARIUM — The Girl with the Raven Mask (review)

AVATARIUM — The Girl with the Raven Mask album cover

Album · 2015 · Doom Metal

5/5 · 2015-10-28
adg211288

The Girl with the Raven Mask (2015) is the second full-length album by Swedish doom metal act Avatarium. Who are Avatarium you may ask? Well if you've somehow managed to miss out on the group's excellent self-titled debut from a couple of years back then you've really missed a trick. Avatarium are a band from Candlemass founder Leif Edling, whose instrumental section boasts an impressive range of players who also play in or have played in acts such as Tiamat, Royal Hunt, Evergrey and many more. The unknown of the group was their vocalist Jennie-Ann Smith (wife of guitarist Marcus Jidell), who also turned out to be something of a secret weapon with her powerful and clear voice working wonders against the backdrop of crushing doom metal that was Avatarium (2013), which I think is one of the best doom metal albums I've ever heard.

But how does a band top such a fine album when it comes to making it's follow-up? Well the answer actually appears to be a pretty simple one: forget the formula that made the debut so effective and do things differently, but at the same time without totally reinventing themselves. Avatarium have scarified some of the heaviness they had before, but as was hinted at with the EP All I Want (2014), they've become a whole lot more psychedelic. Psychedelic influences could be heard on the debut as an occasional flavouring, but on The Girl with the Raven Mask they've become quite the focal point. I'd almost say this is more of a heavy psych album than a doom metal album, were it not so obviously metallic (heavy psych being a form of hard rock).

It's because of this that The Girl with the Raven Mask does some things more unusual for a doom metal album. Take the opening track, Girl with the Raven Mask. This is actually quite the upbeat song from Avatarium. It reminds me of the All I Want title track, which I loved. I'm glad that the band did not just use the EP to try something different before making an album in a business as usual kind of manner. Further tracks starting with The January Sea into the album descend into slower, more familiar doom metal territory but the psychedelic elements remain a constant feature, which sometimes allows the music to have a slightly more uplifting feeling to creep through, but rather than coming across as a happy sounding doom metal album it's more like a glimmer of hope in the darkness. The Girl with the Raven Mask is not a typical doom metal release by any means, and that I think is what makes it so good.

Jennie-Ann Smith proves equally adept at singing the new material while the instrumentalists remain on fine form. The more prominent keyboards of Carl Westholm are a defining feature that gives the music a retro sound which is well paired with Marcus Jidell's guitar, especially his lead playing. There are quite a lot of lighter sections in the music on this album than on the debut, which provide an effective balance of ideas. My favourite song is Girl with the Raven Mask, but I'm also really fond of Iron Mule, Ghostlight, and Run Killer Run as well.

The Girl with the Raven Mask is a change of pace for Avatarium and it's for that reason that not all fans of the debut may be as happy with the change of direction but personally I couldn't be any more chuffed with how this album has turned out. As it happens in the space of two albums the band have produced excellent examples of two sounds that I happen to love, with enough of a connection between the two to still be able to tell that this is a work of Avatarium. The Girl with the Raven Mask is one of this year's best albums. 5 stars; in fact this is only the second release this year that has coaxed a top tier grade from me after review, the other being Iron Maiden's The Book of Souls.

more than 2 years ago
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adg211288 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I think that they could just have easily have pulled off a second album in the style of the debut, but I do happen to love this kind of sound hell of a lot. Not sure which album I prefer yet though. Same band, same basic ingredients but indeed, completely different kind of album.

I'm absolutely addicted to the title track from this one. Had the same thing happen with All I Want last year.

Nightfly wrote:

more than 2 years ago

It's a great album for sure. Totally different to their debut - I agree with you on the debut being one of the best doom metal albums ever so I guess I was hoping for more of the same. For that reason I was initially a little disappointed despite there being nothing to complain about on no 2.