The LoveCrave - The Angel And The Rain

*=Staff's pick	Vampires (The Light That We Are)* Nobody Little Suicide Can You Hear Me?* Fading Roses My Soul Runaway* The Angel And The Rain The Chauffeur* Dark City

Genre	Gothic Rock	Francesca Chiara	Vocals
Tracks	10	Tank Palamara	Guitar
Runningtime	43 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Repo Records	Simon Dredo	Bass
Release	20 Oct. 2006	Iakk	Drums
Country	Italy	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Evanescence, HIM

Italian band The LoveCrave formed in 2004 amongst the metropolitan ashes of the big city Milan, united with the gothic and silent atmosphere of Venice. Vocalist Francesca Chiara has written a fiction story that binds the album together, so in a sense I suppose The Angel And The Rain could be called a concept-album. The band set out to try to create a Blade Runneresque world in their minds and to put music on it. Nothing that I would have figured out myself, but when they point it out it is not that far fetched.

What about the music then? Gothic rock with electronic elements here and there while it is still catchy and melodic music that sticks very direct in your mind. From what I can hear, The LoveCrave gather influences from eighties pop, female fronted goth like Lacuna Coil and Evanescence as well as traditional heavy metal, but the most apparent influence comes inevitably from HIM. Apart from the fact that The LoveCrave is more electronic then HIM there are much that is similar, not least the ambience, and the fact that the songs not seldom have a driving rhythm that pauses in the verses combined with a catchy refrain, as well as other similarities in the song structures. The opening song Vampires (The Light We Are) is a catchy and up-tempo song that perfectly underlines my thesis.

Francesca Chiara has a wonderful and personal voice. Even though she lacks a little bit of power, she has a unique way of singing and her voice comes out as a strange mix of metal-queen Doro and eighties pop-queen Belinda Carlisle, mostly of the latter. Moreover, her voice is the main thing that caught my attention when I first heard the album, and what made me want to listen more to The Angel And The Rain. The pop vibes are intelligently disguised by letting the songs go through a goth rock filter. The up-tempo and catchy song Nobody had without the gothic influences and Him vibes been an ordinary pop song in the eighties Belinda Carlisle vein. In addition, in Little Suicide I get vibes of Kylie Minogue, even though it is one of the heavier tracks considering the riffing and the metal sense.

This album feels to be thoroughly thought through and richly detailed and the band does a nice job of weaving the mentioned influences together and making it work. Even if I don't get my daily dose of metal out of this album, I find it to be very tasteful and nicely arranged. However, I could have done without the ballad Fading Roses with strings and being of the sad kind, but fans of Within Temptation and Evanescence's slower songs will probably be delighted over this one. In my opinion there are too few leads and solos from the guitar, a matter that is common among these kind of bands, but those that are there are good, not least the Iron Maiden inspired lead in the opening track.

The best song on the album is The Chauffeur, and I am not so certain if it is to be seen as a good sign that a cover is the best track on the album. This song is originally done by Duran Duran is one of my favourites from a long time ago in my childhood, and to hear The LoveCrave spice it up a little doesn't sound all bad I must say. This song outdoes all of their own compositions and if they are to pick a song for a single release, mark my words The LoveCrave - this is it. This band can surely be very successful if they manage to reach out to the right audience, but I don't think that the metal crowd is it.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	8	6

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas