While Heaven Wept--Of Empires Forlorn
Eibon 2003
With last year's Chapter One double LP, the first era of While Heaven Wept was closed. Needless to say, if this new album, Of Empires Forlorn, is any indication, Chapter Two is really going to be something even greater to behold. With this album, the leader of the epic doom movement is poised to take the genre out of the underground, once and for all.
The While Heaven Wept sound is constructed here the same way as usual--classical based structures, delivered via both electric and acoustic guitars, are accentuated by synth accompaniment and vibrato-heavy operatic vocals. One thing that helps expand the band's base sound on Of Empires Forlorn is a light years jump in production quality from past While Heaven Wept releases. What does all this mean? Basically, that everything you loved about While Heaven Wept before is still there but even better. This said, the truth is While Heaven Wept have not only expanded their sound, but the entire genre of epic doom, in a way that is inconceiveable with Of Empires Forlorn--they have taken the form of epic doom and pushed its melodic elements as far as you possibly could and still have the music be doom metal. What this does is take every grand and epic element of While Heaven Wept's sound and magnify it tenfold. Of Empires Forlorn is the sound of flying over an ocean with the full moon out and no land in sight, but still you look to the horizon for a shore, though the wind burns your eyes and hope is all but lost. This is haunting stuff and maybe the most epic music ever created, doom or otherwise.
As usual, While Heaven Wept deliver amazing songs. The title track, "Of Empires Forlorn," is classic While Heaven Wept--mournful, passionate, soaring, and heavy. Lots of great palm-muted riffing aids in making this track a winner. In the end, the two standout tracks are "The Drowning Years" and a cover of the 1977 Jane song "Voice In The Wind." These are the two songs on Of Empires Forlorn where While Heaven Wept pushes the melodicism of epic doom to the brink. Both of these tracks are definitely doom metal but at the same time they have "airplay," "heavy rotation," and "hit single" written all over them. Essentially, with these two cuts, While Heaven Wept have taken one of the most cult forms of music ever and skyrocketed it right into the mainstream, from out of nowhere. It's a stunning and unprecedented triumph, to say the least.
All told, it's that triumph that makes Of Empires Forlorn such an all-time classic album. The most hardline doom fiend will worship this recording but probably too will fans of mainstream bands such as Evanescence and Styx (Tom Phillip's vocals do bear a resemblance to those of Dennis DeYoung--especially the higher his voice grows in pitch). If you love great music, whether you realize it yet or not, you owe While Heaven Wept and Of Empires Forlorn your allegiance. This album is much like Celtic Frost's Into The Pandemonium in that there has never really been anything else like it before. Like that album, Of Empires Forlorn is sure to spark a lot of debate amongst the metal underground. In the end, it will be considered a benchmark release, too. This is more than just a mere album-of-the-year candidate--Of Empires Forlorn is one of the greatest and most important albums ever.
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