Welcome Back Beseech! Beseech, for those who are unfamiliar with the band, they were Gothic Metal before it really became Gothic Metal. Before Evanescence flirted with the charts and Nightwish appealed to the masses there was a bunch of bands (both male and female fronted) that were just that bit darker than others – and Beseech were (can you guess…?) one of them (you just knew it was coming…). Their 2000 release (the band’s 2nd) was a great example of this dark, gloomy approach and still my favourite by the band. It blended low-ish male vocals with occasional female voices over groovy, yet powerful Dark Metal. By third album 2002 the market had shifted a little though and Beseech, like many others were encouraged to try and capitalise, so with the female vocals pushed further forward and a new stronger more typically Gothic male vocalist in place they pressed on. The familiar song styles were still there at times, but coinciding with the departure of co-founding guitarist Klas Bohlin the band’s gradual tendency towards the Gothic rather than Dark led them further away from what I liked. The Gothic Metal bubble gradually bloated and then burst with a splatter of black eyeliner and Beseech disbanded in 2006 vowing never to return…
…then returned recently with Bohlin not only back in the ranks but assuming the male vocal role as well as his usual guitar duties. And I think they have pitched their new sound just about right. Basically, if the band hadn’t followed the typically Gothic path that they did after ‘Black Emotions’, this is probably how they would have sounded. It’s dark and its melancholy, but it’s kind of laid back and at times even ethereal. It’s a real grower too, that unveils itself gradually. It doesn’t try to blow your ears off in one go, just entwine around them, seeping in bit by bit, deeper and deeper. It’s overall feel reminds me a lot of the album “Forever Autumn” by Lake Of Tears – another band that were around at the time doing the darker stuff, but Lake of Tears decided to take this type of approach and eschew the whole Gothic malarkey.
There’s a greyish mistiness to Beseech‘s 2016 guise. Even Bohlin’s vocals are delivered with a smoky, whisper, emulated by the soft approach by new female vocalist Angelina Sahlgren Soder. The music is sort of…atmosphere driven, but in a Metal way, not in any way darkwave – It’s hard to explain. Occasionally an instrument takes the lead and sort of rises to the surface, but like glimpses of shapes floating under the surface of a moonlit pool, it’s gradually blended back into the ether once more. The sound isn’t muddy, it’s just so at ease with itself and atmospheric. Some songs are quicker than others like ‘The Symbol’ or ‘Bloodline Fever’ but they don’t really seem like it, just as the slower songs like the aptly titled ‘Atmosphere’ don’t seem much slower. Many songs shift tempos and dynamics so effortlessly that they’ve shifted back again almost before you realize. The band have painted such a vivid background, that anything drawn on to the surface melts back into it beautifully. By accident or design, it’s very cleverly accomplished.
It makes listening to the album in its entirety incredibly easy, but also probably makes it difficult for individual songs to stand out. If you select a track at random – like the memorable ‘The Shimmering’ for instance – they can very easily stand up on their own, but it feels like an album that is meant to be digested as a whole. It all just seems to fit together so well, and possibly because of this, my review seems to have followed the same concept rather than concentrating on the individual songs. There are plenty of memorable musical melodies and vocal moments – some are more immediate than others – but with consecutive listens the pieces fit together more and more, making this one very enjoyable album. Yes, welcome back Beseech, I for one have missed you.
(7.5/10 Andy Barker)
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