Profane Burial - The Rosewater Park Legend (2018)

The concept of 'orchestral black metal' with regards to horror or Gothic themes is one that has certainly been capitalized on heavily by England's Cradle of Filth, and they do a superb job keeping it riffy and grisly but threaded through with symphonic grace and twisted, poetic lyrics. That said, I'm glad there are usually a number of other acts trying their hands at it, with varying degrees of success. Profane Burial is a little known Norwegian band, a collaboration by members of bands like Images at Twilight, Haimad or Omnia Moritur, several of which also use the same sorts of symphonic components to accent other extreme metal approaches. The Rosewater Park Legend is a cohesive concept album, not sure if it's connected to the Silent Hill games or some local Norse event or urban legend, or something written just for this, but it's for sure consistent in tone across all 50 minutes.

The obvious comparisons will be bands like Limbonic Art, Dimmu Borgir and Emperor, but it's not nearly as sweeping as the middle choice nor as incendiary as the third. The symphonic ingredients are balanced quite evenly with the riffing, but there's also a kind of 'prog Wagner' vibe going on, where you get a lot of the bombast but it's broken up into a lot of start/stop and lurching moments. Ominous choirs will flow forth beneath the choppier march riffing in "The Soldier's Song", while "The Tale the Witches Wrote" has this ascending feel, once again Wagnerian but darker. The guitar riffs often have a rather pinpoint sense of technicality to them, they're never really lazy, but they do often descent into simple rhythmic chugging patterns which are one of my pet peeves with symphonic extreme metal, I want the guitars to really rival the orchestration. This is an issue I often have with bands like Septicflesh, even though I generally enjoy their material, they can occasionally go heavier on the bombast than the meat.

There's also a modular feel to The Rosewater Park Legend, as if the songs don't always have the best flow to them for emotional impact, but feel like they were all patched together. That doesn't take away from individual moments, but overall it can seem scattered despite its spooky, thorny tonal consistency. The vocals are more of a death metal guttural throughout, but they will occasionally spin off into more raspy black metal styles, and as tacky as it might seem, I wish there were some more spectral tones in them, male or female beyond just the choir sounds. But the musicianship is never under question here, merely the song structures which can often feel too cluttered for their own good. The Rosewater Park Legend has its moments, but it's not going to stick with you as much as other horror concept records like King Diamond's hot streak or the better-known symphonic black works from the band's countrymen.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://profaneburial.bandcamp.com/album/my-plateau