The very title of this album points to melancholy. The suggestion here was something dark and light, and maybe deep, and hints in style of bands like Swallow the Sun, Katatonia and Novembre. My reaction when I saw mention of these heavyweights was if they get near to them in ambiance, then this will be something worth listening to.

It comes, the rain. This isn’t a weather forecast but the title of the opening piece. Purists to note that I’ve added a comma. Devastation rarely comes from an opening piece, but here it does as with lush Novembrian guitar tones Eternal White Trees invite us in our minds to sadly imagine ourselves looking through a window with the rain lashing down constantly on the other side and steaming up the window. “Ravens Lady” maintains the sadness but now in a moody, vulnerable way with a Katatonia-like constancy of rhythm. That comparison with Swallow the Sun, Katatonia and Novembre is so valid that I can’t ignore it. The guitar style is pure Katatonia. The pace and pure songmanship is Swallow the Sun, while the haunting invasion of the mind and dream-like quality along with the imperious tone of the guitar is that of Novembre.

The songs are edgy and thought-provoking, accentuated by the sharp instrumentals. The vocals are often overlaid, and can come across as being stifling. Such is the case on “Waters”, a darkwave affair if ever there was one. Eternal White Trees cannot be faulted for the ambition in their musical composition. There is a persistence thanks to that guitar ring, the constancy of pace and all-pervasive gloom. But whilst there is a depressive gloom about this, there is something magnetic and in the same way that Katatonia subject you to oceans of misery, yet you think what a great song you’ve just heard, this has the potential to make you think the same. “My Funeral” was never going to be a barrel of laughs but the haunting vocals on top of the lush instrumentals amount to something beautiful and of course melancholic. With each song you feel like you’re sailing away into a sea of sadness. The title song proceeds at its own pace, allowing us to reflect and imbibe the guitar work and vocal lament. The power of the guitar mingles with the steady drum and mournful vocals once more on the final song “Flawless”. A spoken section adds to the atmosphere, before one final dirgeful passage takes us through to the end.

As an album, this is both miserable and beautiful. Yet “The Summer That Will Not Come” did not have the impact on me that it might. I think firstly this is because vocally the tale of regret and despair did not come across to me clearly, in fact the vocals were more like a constant haunting lament, where only occasionally I dipped into another world, as I did on “My Funeral”. The other thing was that I felt no visual images. It’s all quite grey but I didn’t have any mental picture of crumbling, decaying buildings from a bygone era or even the present day. Such blurring meant that some of the experience was missing for me, although I do appreciate the care that went into the compositions, the instrumental sharpness and the unwaveringly melancholic direction of the album.

(7/10 Andrew Doherty)

http://facebook.com/eternalwhitetrees

https://mykingdommusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-summer-that-will-not-come