Raintime - Flies & Lies

Published May 23 2007

*=Staff's pick	Flies And Lies Rolling Chances* Apeiron Rainbringer Finally Me Tears Of Sorrow The Black Well* Beat It* Another Transition* Burning Doll Matrioska*

Genre	Death/Thrash/Prog. Metal	Claudio Coassin	Vocals
Tracks	11	Matteo Di Bon	Guitar
Runningtime	46 Min.	Luca Michael Martina	Guitar
Label	Lifeforce Records	Michele Colussi	Bass
Release	26 May 2007	Enrico Fabris	Drums
Country	Italy	Andrea Corona	Keyboard
Similar artists	Manticora, Children Of Bodom, Mercenary

Flies & Lies is the second album from the Italian band Raintime, and it is not entirely easy to describe their sound in an easy way. The band started out as an instrumental progressive band but has developed quite a bit since then, I believe. Progressive is still a word that is valid when describing Raintime, but you have to include melodic death, thrash as well as traditional heavy metal in their sound to complete the picture. Raintime have turned down on the progressive parts compared to their former release, Tales Of Sadness, and by now, the hints of power metal are more or less completely washed away.

There is a considerable higher share of growls in Raintime now, and as the good singer Claudio Coassin is, he manages the growls as well as the clean vocals where he has a slight likeness with James LaBrie of Dream Theater, which is the band that acted as the biggest source of inspiration in the early days of Raintime. The opening song, which is also the title track, is heavy and aggressive in its verses contra a melodic and clean refrain with progressive approaches via the keyboards through out the song. And that is the general formula for Raintime that somewhat has a Scandinavian sound. Rolling Chances is a fast track that starts in the vein of Children Of Bodom, but again the refrain is clean and melodic, it is not an overly aggressive track and in likeness with the Finns, it has some great harmonies with keys and guitar.

There are two guests on the album, and I wonder if it isn't in Apeiron where Jacob Bredahl from Hatesphere is doing a vocal appearance? It sounds like it could be him in the verses anyway, the song is straightforward thrash with harsh vocals until the, once again, clean vocal melodic refrain, but with a high intensity from the riffing guitars. The keyboards help out with the progressive connection in Raintime, as it is creating backgrounds and playing leads and adds more to the progressive metal than what the breaks and tempo shifts in the music does. Second guest on the album is Manticora's Lars F. Larsen, and even if there are hints of power metal in some parts of the other songs, it is not as obvious as with the melodic Blind Guardian hymn-like refrain in Another Transition. The up-tempo melodic metal track with occasional growls is a stand out track in a positive sense with the strong chorus that is probably made to play live.

A song that stands out in a negative sense is Finally Me, the ballad of the album. It is no more than a classic power ballad and these kinds of songs do absolutely nothing for me. It follows the general ballad standards and it has some kind of strange vibe of seventies hard rock ballads over it, or is it a hair metal vibe? Anyway, press skip for this one. It is much better then with the other songs where some influences from the Gothenburg sound can be found as well. It is most apparent in the track Black Well, and it is almost as they are trying to duplicate Dark Tranquillity in this one. Although, it is one of the better songs on Flies & Lies. Raintime sink their teeth into the classic Michael Jackson track, Beat It, and if you ask me that is one of his good songs. And surprisingly enough this works and turns out well. They have stayed true to the original at the same time as they have manage to put their own signature to it, although you can obviously hear that it doesn't quite fit in, so to have placed the song last on the album as a bonus would have been better.

So far this has been a good album, well done, well performed, but nothing that is that much out of the ordinary, but a solid effort nonetheless. But then they have saved the best for last with the closing track Matrioska. Melodic up-tempo metal that is reminding me much of Mercenary, Matrioska has a pulsating rhythm with traces of Russian music and some truly strong vocal melodies and a refrain that leaves me satisfied when the album runs out.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	4	7	6	8

Summary
6,5 chalices of 10 - Thomas