Requiem: Mezzo Forte

Virgin Black | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 3, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: The End Records
• ASIN: B000NJXC30
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,245 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

- CRITICAL METAL

If you take the time to really get to know Virgin Black's music, you will be blessed

Masterpieces don't write themselves, no, masterpieces take time and indeed this album reflects that.

Every second of this album is a decadent, masterful piece of genuinely ravishing genius

Product Description

An Expansive, expressive journey... statuesque and monolithic...delicately etched upon a canvas of gothic and classical beauty.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, April 10, 2007

By 

David van Sise "GigerPoet" (Seminole, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Requiem: Mezzo Forte (Audio CD)

I have been listening to Virgin Black since they have come out. Sombre Romantic to me was one of the greatest "metal" albums that I have ever heard. I cannot tell yet but I think this album far exceeds even that. I think it is right up there with Nights in white satin from the Moody Blues( I know not metal). Except the whole album is just as impressive. By the way... This album contains not one song.. everything is a movement. An amazing masterwork. It's hard to believe that Rowan (singer) and Escarbe (guitar) wrote and composed this whole album!!! Keep that in mind!!!

Mezzo Forte in C minor.. It starts with this sort of heart clenching, throat choking beauty of a piece. Requiem Kyrie (which seems to be the theme of the whole album) is about as great a start off as any Dead Can Dance album. Powerful, moving, and EPIC!
It Gently glides into the next piece (one never really hears the transition) but this time the guitars crank in at about 1/3rd of the song. Upon first listen, goosebumps raced up an down my arms.. This piece is powerful. I feel a million emotions as Rowans growling blends with the distortion. Then His ever improving voice.. His singing is like that of a fallen angel. Whatever distortion there is, is played perfectly along with the violins.

The third song at first disapointed me. I mean, it was the heaviest song on Sombre Romantic (the first album) here to make a reprise. At first I thought the slower pace just didn't work. Then the ending came...... I realized how absolute and devastating this song really was. With the "death" choir I felt a doomsday sort of feeling.. Like that from the Exorcist. A power movement indeed....
Then come one of the gems ....and I am Suffering... this 12 minute piece is emotional as any song can get with out being retarted (see Yellow card for that one.) I almost wanted to cry. It was like Host of the seraphim, again Dead Can Dance, with guitars but entirely their own beast.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better then comes Domine!!!!
The best song on the album.. Quite possibly the most epic and most doomsday-ish song ever recorded... with enough sweeping melodies and enough growling to appease Sisters of mercy fans and fans of metal.

The album then sort of reverses and slowly starts to simmer to a beautiful resting place.... Note the better singing and better drumming on the enire album.

This is when you open your eyes and blow out the candels....

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trilogy Likely to be Masterpiece, April 18, 2007

By 

Ryan T. Miller (Houston, TX, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Requiem: Mezzo Forte (Audio CD)

I am a classical music enthusiast who also has a penchant for metal. In recent times I have been getting more into doom metal and gothic metal, and then there is Virgin Black, which really defies categorization--they combine elements of many kinds of music. And they are extremely ambitious and possess great songwriting ability, a most welcome combination.

This, the first release and middle section from a musical trilogy, is appropriately grand and morose. It is an almost even blend of orchestral and metal elements (with the Pianissimo album being mostly orchestral, and the Fortissimo being mostly metal). This is in my view their most mature and epic work, and is a clear outgrowth of their earlier albums, with the same passion but more skill.

The only notable flaw is the lead vocals, which have improved much since Sombre, but which are still not of the extremely high level demanded of for such an grandiloquent sound. However, this is a minor complaint and the earnestness and vocal effects of the singer more than compensates for some of the notes he can't quite get.

Highly recommended, either for fans of VB, metal fans with a taste for the grandiose, or classical fans who want to hear modern day masterpieces. Basically any music devotee will find much to praise in Mezzo Forte.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ***DETAILED REVIEW FOR AN AMAZING ALBUM***, June 5, 2007

By 

Mr. Robert C. Wilson "Alex wilson" (London, uk) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Requiem: Mezzo Forte (Audio CD)

First, if you dont know virgin black this is a quick genralisation of their music. It is extremely dark, not just the average crap "gothic" sound, but a genuine, original, creative darkness. it is untrue to say the music is depressing. Shape of Despair are depressing. Virgin Black have an element of beauty which is far more foregrounded then their dark sound. It is mournful, epic, majestic and beautiful. All these qualities come first.
their first two full length albums are far less orchestral then this album, they are a more traditional band format, although there is nothing traditional about their style. There style is well summarised in their own words..."comfort in darkness" if you like music which conveys either of these emotions BUY THIS
This album is a beautiful meeting of metal and orchestral music. Not in the cheesy fashion of many bands, or the film-score sound of nightwish etc.... the lyrics are also beautiful, more powerful and to be awed at, then dark and depressing lyrics. it is worth, i think, pointing out that virgin black are a christian band. Therefore the religious referances, and referances to death, darkness, misery etc.... avoid the typical cliches of metal, as they are tinged with a religious and beautiful hope.
I would suggest that this album is more orchestra/classical influanced then metal influanced. the metal aspects contribute to the epic sound..they are not the essence. imagine 'O Fortuna' with guitars, drums and classical vocals on it
It is a real orchestra. The vocals are absolutely beautiful, a mournful, classically trained vocal style, coupled with classical female vocals. However Rowan (male singe) can also do black metal screams and lower death metal vox. there is no black metal vox in this album (in fact, unlike their first 2 full lengths there is no black metal influance at all.)
Though there is lower death vocals occasionaly, there is also a choir frequently singing on this album (reminiscent of gregorian chant style vocal peices.) There is even a death metal vocal choir! This is the kind of shining example of originality that virgin black pull off.


INSTRUMENT LIST;
Orchestra (strings, brass, percussion)
Guitars
Drum kit
Vocals (male, female, death vox, choir, death vox choir)
piano





Another thing i love about this album is the inter-album references. ie. small phrases are repeated subtly throughout the album. This is a referance to how "classical" music develops its themes. This creates the effect that the album is one peice of music, rather then individual tracks. there is also a couple of referances to themes from their first album..done subtly of course. I love this attention to detail!

TRACKS

1) this is sort of the theme of this album, it is a meandering atmospheric peice centered around a refrain which is hugely epic.
2) the metal aspects are introduced here.
3) a track which features melodies from a track off their first album, but adapts them to the style of this album, there is also plenty of new material here. The majority of it is new. quite short compared to the rest. A bit of the serialist influance found on their second album here.
4) a beautiful track
5)Less orchestral parts here, death metal vocals are used in parts of this track
6) similar in tone to track 5, again, less orchestras parts.
7) quite short again. This takes the album full circle with the refrain from track 1. This time with added guitars to create a grand and epic closure to the album.


this is the second album in a series of 3. The first one is just orchestral and the third one is the heaviest music the band have ever recorded. So it is a large peice of music split into 3 discs.
This album was released first however due to the record company (the great "The End Records") wanting it to be so.

IN SHORT THIS ALBUM IS ABSOLURTELY AMAZING, HUGE RANGE OF INSTRUMENTS AND TEXTURES. ALL SONGS HAVE ORIGINAL UNCONVENTIONAL STRUCTURES, EVERY PART OF THE ALBUM IS PERFECT. IT IS ONE OF THOSE RARE ALBUMS THAT COULD NOT BE IMPROVED!!!!!

IF YOU ARE INTO METAL, DOOM, BLACK, FILMSCORE, CLASSICAL, GOTH, DEATH, NEOFOLK ETC..... OR YOU ARE GENUINLY INTERESTED IN MUSIC, YOU SHOULD LOVE THIS ALBUM. AN AMAZING BAND!!!!!!