siLLy puPPy
Edgar Allen Poe has gone down in history for his poems set to musicality, stylized language and supernatural atmospheres which is why his subject matter so perfectly fits into the modern day world in the terms of inspiration for certain metal bands, particular the more macabre and lugubrious subgenera of doom metal and gothic metal. Without any covert references the Portuguese band A DREAM OF POE set about to worship its favorite American poet from their not so dark and mysterious starting point of the Azores located west of Morocco in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s no wonder that this location was too cheery and the band eventually relocated to the more dismal setting of Scotland.
The band’s debut EP titled SORROW FOR THE LOST LENORE is a reference right out of Poe’s famous narrative poem “The Raven” first published in 1845 which would set the tone for this band’s goth doom march that has so far included a demo, two EPs and four albums. The band has primarily been masterminded by Miguel "Bruno Spell" Santos (multi-instrumentalist) with Paulo Pacheco contributing lyrics. This EP only contains five tracks two of which are covers. “Gentle Whisper” is a cover track of Morbid Death, another band emerging from the Azores and “For My Fallen Angel” is a cover of the project’s most obvious point of reference - My Dying Bride.
There’s not much to say about this except that if you ever wanted to hear a blatant My Dying Bride clone that is inferior in every way then A DREAM OF POE is the nightmare you’ve been looking for. I’m not sure how anyone could accept this as a real project since it sounds like a cover band even on the three original tracks. This is basically slow doom metal with an atmospheric component that replicates the mid-90s My Dying Bride experience in every way except the vocals are substandard and not up to the task of creating a true goth doom vibe and the music is rather lazy as well with boring drum beats not to mention the mix is somewhat weak. The best track on here is the My Dying Bride cover itself but offers nothing to make it distinct from the original. In fact it sounds like a rough draft.
While SORROW FOR THE LOST LENORE isn’t a horrible listening experience in its own right, the derivative display of unoriginality swallowing up a playing time of 40 minutes gets boring really fast. All this really accomplished was for me to want to revisit My Dying Bride’s string of excellent albums that shows the true goth doom metal thing is done in all its splendor. A DREAM OF POE fails to find its own niche in the world and instead resorts to ripping off another more famous band’s style without even adding a single shred of originality. This is not a band i wish to explore further as it seems the albums simply retread the basic template already laid down on this album and no matter how well they have been improved, this is still very much a band that has not found its own way.