TENEBRE – Heart’s Blood

Navigating through only the darkest musical waters, Tenebre has made a name for themselves at the extreme end of Goth. From their Gothic Horror Metal debut XIII, they have sailed with several crew changes until their fifth and present Heart’s Blood full-length release, which is a visit to the roots of Goth.

The Music

Right from the start of “Silver Flame” there’s absolutely no doubt where this is headed: the minor key harmonies, the low pitch vocals, and the gloomy guitars and keyboards takes you right back from where all the great Goth came. With “Mistress Of The Dark” they follow up, and the rest of the album is almost a ride down Memory Lane, except for all of the songs being new. A kind of musical déjà vu, you might say.

However, it doesn’t take long before the album reveals itself as less innovative and far from convincing. In fact, the songs are at times hard to distinguish from each other and you have to wait until the 9th track, the title track “Heart’s Blood,” to see any considerable highlight (even if the preceding “Black Void Nirvana” is not at all that bad).

The Band

Tenebre play with appropriate precision, dynamics, and charisma, but with the songs being often on the weaker side, they fail to warrant description via superlatives. Characteristic for the band is the clean guitar figures (acting as riffs) and the (attempted) deep vocals of original singer Kalle Metz. The latter often sticks to register too low for his voice to actually ring out, and that inhibits his expression. And at the end of the day, Tenebre comes through as mostly a pale copy of their influences. With a name derived from the Latin word for darkness (tenebrae), this is really disappointing.

The Verdict

Tenebre know their Goth well. Still, they don’t seem to have much to offer other than rather safe patterns and moods with little or no substantial pain or heartache, like you would expect from this band. This leads the album to the grim corners of short term memory, and the album is forgotten the minute it’s over. Excepted from this is perhaps the aforementioned title track. Thus, Heart’s Blood is an album worth leaving behind.