ALBUM REVIEW: Blackfinger - "When Colors Fade Away"

By: Richard Maw


Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 15/09/2017

Label: M-Theory Audio

 

I cannot find anything to fault here. Blackfinger have delivered nine tracks of trad doom with style and finesse. Eric Wagner has put his name to another excellent doom album and this is recommended to any fans of Trouble, The Skull, Saint Vitus, The Obsessed and so on out there

“When Colors Fade Away” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). When Colors Fade Away

2). Can I Get A Witness

3). All My SorrowType O

4). My Old Soul

5). After-now

6). Crossing The River

7). Beside Still Water

8). Waiting for the Sun

9). Till We Meet Again

The Review:

Blackfinger's second album once again has Eric Wagner at the helm on vocals and comes three years after their self titled debut.  The band is split between Illinois and Pennsylvaniaand certainly brings the Autumnal melancholy that one associates with those states. The first album was a mixture of doom and classic rock influences and reminded me of Type O Negative in some ways. This second offering, to my ears has ramped up the doom leanings.

The title track is up first and makes an effective statement of intent- it delivers downbeat and downcast doom in the Sabbath vein, while “Can I Get A Witness” also has the blood of Iommi running through its veins. The nine tracks here all sounds great; the drums are boomy and big sounding, the bass rumbles, the guitars suitably thick. Wagner is on good form as ever (when is he not?!) and he keeps his plaintive wail pitched just right- both in terms of lyrics and technical singing. References to obscure darkness, the illusion of choice and so on abound. The nursery rhyme reference in “My Old Soul” works, surprisingly, but it is the atmosphere of the album which really makes for more than the sum of its parts.

Even when the band grooves, as it does on “Afternow”, there is still an undercurrent of menace and despair- which is exactly as a doom record should be! The track is a great example of a slow groove, it features a cowbell and the solo, which is excellent. With none of the tracks exceeding six minutes and most around the four minute mark, the band has their style of arrangements down. This is not epic doom, but it is doom in the most traditional form- please note, sludge is NOT doom.

From the crawling likes of ”Crossing The River Turmoil” to the more creepy “Beside Still Water” the record does cover a fair bit of ground- but only within the sphere of trad doom. This is not a heavy metal record, it does not feature thrash inflections and has stripped away the classic rock feel of the self titled album.

By the time of the melodic “Waiting For The Sun”, the album is most definitely set in stone- melancholy vibe in terms of clean sections, lyrics and vocals, riffs that are thick and heavy with emotional weight rather than aggression. Only on the closing “Till We Meet Again” does the band press the pedal slightly closer to the metal and a fine groove it is too. Really, I cannot find anything to fault here. Blackfinger have delivered nine tracks of trad doom with style and finesse. Eric Wagner has put his name to another excellent doom album and this is recommended to any fans of Trouble, The Skull, Saint Vitus, The Obsessed and so on out there. Try to get hold of it before winter really hits as it suits the atmosphere of Autumn perfectly.

“When Colors Fade Away” is available here

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook