Atrocity - Calling The Rain (1995) - Superficial ethno experiment from a faceless band - 40% (30/05/12)

Atrocity has always been a band that polarized a lot as they’ve experienced a lot during their career. They’ve lost and won many old and new fans and went from grindcore stuff over death metal releases to ethnic folk experiments, gothic records and two entire cover albums of famous pop songs of the eighties. The problem is that most of the bands experimentations remaindes rather superficial and weren’t passionate enough to convince. At the same time, the band’s identity is not only amorphous but quite goalless and somewhat irritating.

“Calling The Rain” is the band’s first ethnically influenced and mostly acoustic record. Band leader and singer Alexander Krull is supported by his own sister Yasmin Krull on the vocals and on a couple of flutes. In my humble opinion he should have headed for a more professional musician instead of choosing a close family member. His sister is tolerable on the flutes but her vocals are even more generic and annoying than the mostly emotionless and faceless clean vocal performances by the band leader himself.

Another problem of this record is the song writing. We have a couple of unnecessary and very calm interludes on this already rather short release that build up no interesting atmosphere and only sound uninspired and sleepy. In addition to this we have two rather useless versions of the same song. The worst thing is though the pseudo-tribal epic closer “Ancient Sadness” that only contains a couple of noises of wind, wuthering and some birds and insects. This failed meditative atmosphere is supported by annoying “hey ya, hey ya ho” chants that sound completely ridicolous. This kind of experiment goes on for over ten minutes and is quite a loss of time, material and money.

At least a couple of charming folk instruments and melodies that have been integrated in the regular songs keep this record from being a complete failure. The track “Calling The Rain” has its catchy moments and definitely the best vocal performances of the record. “Migrants Shade” has some great acoustic harmonies, interesting tribal drumming and is very apeasing. One of the best songs is without a doubt the bonus track “Desert Land” that is only included on the rerelease. The track has romantic lyrics as well as a couple of exotic Arabian folk influences that were not yet overused in the rock and metal scene back in the days. Nowadays, many bands did a more inspired mixture of new age and ethnic folk elements with hard rock or heavy metal music and I would really recommand you to watch out for these ones first instead of chosing this weak album.

I purchased this release with the band’s last regular studio record “After The Storm” that is a continuation of this concept. I would deinitely nots pend any money on the original release and would have never purchased this album. It has three good tracks that I mentioned but the rest is situated somewhere between below average and very mediocre. The general idea of the record was interesting for its time but its execution is bland and superficial as many other releases from this band. The creativity seems to be there but the talent and especially the passion is often lacking.