BRUTALISM

When the Morningside's debut "The Wind, The Trees and the Shadows of the Past" was released in 2007, it show a band still in its embryonic phase. The album seemed inconsistent and the band didn't seem to have a clear vision over their sound but they did have some very impressive musicianship, it was the patchy songwriting that was their weakness at that point in time. This is just my opinion of course, the album was critically acclaimed so i know i am in the minority on that issue. Two years later and some changes have been made and its all good news, the band sounds more focused, the songs are stronger and the production has had a much needed boost. The band still sounds like Agalloch or Katatonia so this is definitely a worthy investment if you like those bands. The Morningside play a atmospheric form of doom/death metal, with blackened vocals, along with the occasional whisper. Sergey Chelyadinov (guitar) and Ilya Egorychev (bass) seem to be the driving force behind most of the music on this album while the drums (Boris Sergeev) are solid but not remarkable. The vocals of Igor Nikitin still remains a weak point but i feel it is essentially not a real important part of the Morningside's sound. The album begins a intro before moving into "14’ and its a particularly brilliant song, showing some interesting guitar work. The riffs are dymanic in range and the other instruments pitch in to make a far more expansive sound. I feel myself being more pleased with the clearer more vibrant sound of this album compared with the limited style of the debut, which although good, isn’t as accessible as this album. However, I suspect a number of death/doom fans won’t appreciate the slightly thin production as it doesn’t showcase the dark themes they write about. After "14" another highlight comes along with "The Autumn People", the contrasting textures shows how much they are influenced by the aforementioned bands as they move between those two styles within the same song but managed to do it fluidly. Elsewhere the title track "Moving Crosscurrent of Time" starts off strong but it lost my attention after the 6 minute mark, at nearly 9 minutes it seems a little too long and underdone. The other tracks on the album are of similar standard, good but nothing compared with the first half of the CD. It is interesting how a simple change in production style that allows the bass and percussion to have a more key role in the music can be such a improvement for a band. Here the band shows a big step forward which must be great for the Russian doom scene which has been on shaky ground since the mid 90's. Despite the fact that the band is obviously influenced by both early era Agalloch and early Katatonia, the musicianship is far superior than both those bands. The sad part is they will at the end of the day still be regarded as a copy-cat outfit but don't let that influence your decision on checking this out. This is good atmospheric death/doom with great musicianship with only the vocals having a question mark next to it, also even though the production standard has lifted since the first album it is still no where near heavy enough to drive these really dark tunes home. The band can only get even better from here but grabbing a copy of this is a great way to introduce yourself to this band from Russia.