Deliverance Lost - Death of White Raven (EP Review)

Tracklist:

1. Black Sun    
2. Empty Forest     
3. Newborn 
4. Dying Light
5. Rise and Fall 

This is the second release from the Russian depressive atmospheric black metal project Deliverance Lost. This is the second EP from the project this year, the first being Tears Of White Raven which I reviewed four months ago, and still remains my favourite EP of 2015.

This EP was released two days ago at the time of writing this, and it is safe to say that this was an anticipated release for me. The album starts with the track Black Sun which feels as though it is a clear continuation from the projects last release, with its howling vocals, powerful drum work and the use of the same type of ambient static that a gave Tears Of White Raven a very unique atmosphere. This track is soon followed by my personal favourite track on the album Empty Forest, this track is an instrumental and features the best drum and keyboard work on the entire EP, it has a superb atmosphere of desperation, and isolation which is cleverly conveyed. Newborn, the third track on the album lacks the atmospheric quality of the of the first two, instead replacing it with more great howling vocal work and gloom ridden riffs to create a pure depressive black metal track, that is fairly different from the other tracks on this EP. The final two tracks on the EP are Dying Light and Rise and Fall sadly these tracks don’t really musically bring that much in the way of either atmospheric or depressive sounds, instead the two tracks are pretty dull and a little drab.

This brings me to my problem with this EP. Even the best track on the release (Empty Forest) suffers from a loss of purpose and direction around half way through, and sadly this is present on all of the tracks. The first three tracks all have extremely strong beginnings, but suffer at the half way point until the end of the song with a loss of drive, and this really affects the listenability of the EP.

Personally comparing this to Tears of White Raven is very difficult as that EP is almost unbeatable when it comes to modern depressive atmospheric black metal in my opinion. Therefore it is clear that this EP does not match up to the projects first release, but to look at it on its own terms without comparison elsewhere it is a pretty decent release from what is still a very new project.  

Support the project and download the EP here