Dying Tears was a pretty good sound, and a pretty big one. Not just 4 musicians which is the case with a lot of bands; this band used 8 full time musicians and brought in spares to fill the void. And three of them were women. And from the pictures, they were kinda cute. Now some folks didn’t exactly rave about the female vocals, in fact, some folks complained. I wouldn’t go that far but those vocals were never destined to replace Tarja or Simone. And sometimes that works, this being one of those instances.

They call this a thematic production. It tells a story. Well, that may be true, but the story will never grace a children’s storybook. This is about as dark as a funeral in January in Northern Wisconsin on a bad day. These lyrics would give Bram Stoker nightmares. And that’s what I like most about it. The instrumental work is really quite good, strong keys, hard guitar riffs, solid drums, all backing up a story line from hell. Why these guys aren’t still around is beyond me. Maybe they went into writing horror stories. But, any way you look at it, this is damn fine Gothic.

That strong musical component covers a lot of territory. The band makes use of a cello full time, it’s part of the woodwork. But, on this CD, they also make use of guest musicians playing flute, violin and a threatening saxophone. You get pretty much the entire orchestra, and not just through the keys. And that orchestration adds to the dark passage that is the storyline of the CD. The production is pretty much spot on, individual instruments are timed to appear at just the right moment to augment the horror that is the basis of this production. There is also a strong movement to utilize pace. We go from searing guitar segments to funeral dirges, the effect is disconcerting; we are never left feeling comfortable. But then, comfort is not the goal here, we’re in it for the terror, for the feelings of hopelessness, for the eternal despair that defines our mortal existence. And in that, Dying Tears have succeeded in this final effort.

The story line is about death. Gothic death. We deal with loss here, we deal with the finality of death, we are left with the questions and existential pathology that remains. Each song takes that story a little deeper, from the initial shock to the dismay, to the hurt, to the anger and finally to the emptiness that is our final ground. Pain is the message, eternal lose is the theme, and, in the end, we have nothing left to resolve our feelings. Sad begins this mundane journey:

They just don’t write it like that anymore, at least not very often. Gives me that warm fuzzy feeling of one foot in the grave and the other on uncertain ground. But, as they say in the commercials, "Wait, there’s more". Sad is a rocker, even with the lyrics from the cold side of the grave. The guitars lead the way here, the male death vocals begin the tale and they are quite good. The female vocal isn’t exactly Floor Jensen but it does have something of a Sins of Thy Beloved feel to it, and that’s what we want when we’re visiting the cemetery, which is certainly the feel here. And I do love SoTB, nothing reminds me of my former wife more. If you’re interested, YouTube carries a couple videos from the CD, and Sad is one of them, see it here.

But death comes silently, and inevitably. Our need to deal with the eventuality of loss consumes us and Dying Tears talks to this mournful direction. Beneath The Soils takes us to the graveyard, and to the task of dealing with that stark reality. That requirement to deal with our loss takes a million directions, none of them typically beautiful, but all are given full reign as we struggle with our daily lives following loss, one way or another. Lyrically, the band speaks to this requirement:

As the music continues the despair mounts. Darkness becomes an eternity, hopelessness becomes the norm. The music captures this descent into madness, individual instruments add to the flavor of the moment. The vocals tell the story but the music makes it real. Each individual song captures an individual step in the movement towards eternal remorse, a feeling of eventual doom. Last Kiss is among the most heart rendering of the titles on this less than uplifting saga. We view the crypt here, initially carried over that soulful cello. We acknowledge the weakness in facing that loss that has driven us down. Where are we to run, how are we to regain our previous place among the living? Who will we turn to?

Well, enough of this. You get the picture; this ain’t no American boy band happy land babble. Thank God. And, they do end it on a rather beautiful note. Hope is an instrumental selection. It may not provide much in the way of hope but it is rather beautiful, in a mournful kind of way. I guess you could call this uplifting, given the nature of the rest of the CD. And, it does sign off for Dying Tears with something to remember them by. Oh well, death is sad, but sometimes beautiful, and Dying Tears has left us with something beautiful to remember them by. . . and we do have copies in the store.

9 / 10