Customer Reviews

Psychromatic

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Italy is known for many great things: The Leaning Tower Of Pisa, Leonardo da Vinci, The Vatican, and my personal favorite, the meatball parmesan sandwich. Italian metallers Raintime are back with their third installment of power influenced modern metal titled Psychromatic. But will this album fill my musical appetite, or leave me hungry for more?

The album opens with the upbeat and heavy hitting "Fire Ants." From the very first key stroke, you are immediately drawn in. Guitarists Daniele Bressa and Matteo Di Bon come out blistering the frets while keyboardist Andrea Corona finds himself stride for stride with the six strings. Instantly, you will notice that Raintime's style and sound can be compared to In Flames and their last few outings (Soundtrack to Your Escape, Come Clarity and A Sense Of Purpose). Now, I'm not saying that these guys are identical, but there's no doubt that the influence is there and burns bright. Vocally, Claudio Coassin does come off sounding quite a bit like Anders Fridén (In Flames) but honestly, I found his singing voice (while not amazing) to be much better than Fridén's. Once thing I noticed throughout the disc is that the growls found on their previous efforts are all but long gone. Replacing them are super clean vocals with a scream here and there thrown in for good measure.

If you feel like breaking some necks on the dance floor, check out "Turned Up and Down." The opening sounds like something off the latest Dirge Within album with its great bounce and groove that could move mountains. Once you get accustomed to the bounce, you're taken in a completely different direction with Enrico Fabris pounding the skins and killing the double bass. The choruses see the band finding their inner "techno geek-meets-Korn" selves. So pull your dreads back, grab your glow stick, and enter the black light circle pit.

"Nothing But A Mistake" is absolute must listen on this album. Bressa and Di Bon's guitar work is phenomenal on this song. Their high octane riffs are filled with enough diesel to make Lamb Of God's axemen proud. This is one of the few songs that gets nasty vocally and it was nice to hear. Everything about this song is top notch with the ferocious drumming, impeccable keys and bottom heavy bass. The choruses are extremely singable and as likable as grandma's home cookin'.

Tracks like "I Want To Remember", "Shift" and "Beaten Roads", while all solid songs, really never captured my attention. "I Want To Remember" comes off like a afterthought Bullet For My Valentine track with its over the top radio friendly vibes and happy go lucky choruses. "Shift" is a slow, dark, and dreary song that is cool when taken at face value, but suffers a major drawback with the way the verses are put together. With his thick accent combined with being layered so much, Coassin's vocals sound odd -- almost like they are backwards, which makes them hard to understand at times. "Beaten Roads" sounds like thrown away Metallica riffs from a bygone era mixed with some of Load's (Metallica) southern charm just for grins. There are parts in the song where the band kicks into a double bass thrash-fest that comes off messy and totally unnecessary. Not to be outdone, they incorporate the generic over the top guitar solo found in most songs from yesteryear.

The album ends on "Buried In You" and "Walk-On Actor." Both tracks have an old school power/progressive style and feel, but combine newer style riffs, vocals and obviously more breakdowns. And if there's a genre that I absolutely cannot stomach, it is progressive/power metal in its true form. In my mind, it's a style that should be shot, burned, buried, dug up and the process repeated. Last time I checked, it isn't 1994 and Awake (Dream Theater) isn't topping the charts. Fortunately for me, Raintime are able to add just enough modern elements to these tracks to keep me from wanting to take a cordless drill to my forehead.

Psychromatic is an album that finds itself somewhere in metal purgatory. It has some outstanding elements of modern metal that really shine, while other parts that flashback to previous decades. With the overplay of clean vocals and near exclusion of heavy end snarls, I feel Raintime may have somewhat backed themselves into a corner. One minute you'll find your jaw hitting the floor and the next, your finger hitting the eject button.

I was blown away with Flies and Lies. I listened to it on grooveshark. I was going to get all their albums at one point. Thats what I do is collect albums. However, after listening to this album, I have changed my mind about them. I will continue to listen to Flies and Lies, but I will not be buying their catalog for sure. This album just sucks. I don't normally write bad reviews, but they can do better than this.

this album was disappointing. very soft and techno ish on one song. it had a lot of great tracks and sadly alot of bad. i was expecting more brutalness but flies and lies was a great album and makes this one look like poo. i recomend it but just dont expect anything spectacular. dont sell out raintime please.

I became a fan of Raintime after hearing their song Tears of Sorrow on Pandora's radio a few years back. That song had one of the best choruses in metal if you asked me. I went out and bought Flies and Lies and was floored but it left me wanting more. I received Psychromatic in the mail the other day and this album blew me away. Some of the riffs and grooves on this album are amazing and the songwriting is top notch. Everything I liked about Flies and Lies is here they just do it 100 percent better. The melodies are haunting, the choruses are huge and you can sing along with them, and the music is just outstanding.

Stand out tracks would be.. Fire Ants, Turned up and down, Beaten Roads, Walk-on Actor.. Although all are amazing..

To be blunt - this simply isn't Raintime anymore. While on Flies and Lies they put together a masterful album, for this release, they flopped. The growls and sublime aggression in Flies and Lies is history. For Psychochromatic they opted for not just all clean vocals, but weak clean vocals with none of the passion carried in the clean vocals of Flies and Lies.

I've tried to give this album a chance, but it's just horrible. I mean there is still a few good moments musically, but with all the growls, aggression and passion that made Flies and Lies so amazing and unique (not easy in an genre full of carbon copies!), Psychochromatic is but a shell of what Raintime used to be. It has the fingerprints of sellout all over it and the CD is better used as a drink coaster than music entertainment.

Hopefully, Raintime will get their heads out of the clouds and get back to what made Flies and Lies one of my favorite CDs and - at the time - made Raintime a potential dominator in the genre.

I must agree with the other reviewer who gave this 5 stars. It is Awesome! I DO own all of Raintime's CDs and this one has grown to be my favorite. It is very diverse, with slower Techno ballads and In Flames type head banging scorchers! The first track has one of my favorite riffs/beats of all time. It rocks. Let this disc take you on a journey. Have some FUN, bang your head, and sing along. I love the the vocals and the way they mix with the whole rockin' groove of this release. The last song actually ventures into prog territory. It is awesome, so Don't stop playing it until it's over. As far as rating a CD one or Two stars and just saying it sucks is not fair and P's me off! If you don't like it then give some reasons why. Too many uneducated people leave stupid reviews and waste. People's time and unfairly bring down a CDs. rating. Thank you for reading. I own just about 1,000 CDs and I HIGHLY recommend this one.

I thought I was getting a Raintime album. I was sadly mistaken. Not to imply that this band was original because they surely were not. But I found things to like in their albums. This album is a complete deviation from their previous efforts. Again, another bands sells out their fan base for whatever reason. I feel like I was duped. This is one of the reasons why people pirate music. The previous reviewer is too kind on them. This is not good. Not in any shape or form. Plus this is completely boring. They have turned into an old school metal outfit with modern rock choruses that you hear on MTV and the radio. They really don't pull it off well. Growls???..what growls. If you liked the other albums from them do not get this one. It's a disappointment to your senses.

Raintime finally releases a new album and sadly i must say it is very weak. This album has barely anything in common with their previous album "flies and lies" the songs are written in a more commercial and less musical way. the melodic death edge is now on 3 or 4 songs tops on this album. They also pull the "cut down on guitar solos" thing on this album. That is one of my biggest pet peeves that a band could pull. The guitarist in this band is fantastic, and i find it annoying that he is now only soloing on 2 or 3 songs on their new album. Raintime sound completely different, and im not happy with the change. There are a few very good songs on the album, but I'd say 65% is pretty bad.