I’ve never been the biggest fan of Gothic Metal. I only know staples in the genre and people who I thought were Gothic Metal have almost all turned into some sort of Rock/Pop entity. It seems Gothic Metal and I haven’t gotten along since most of these bands lost their Doom roots. It’s not that these bands aren’t talented; it’s just that not every band with a female front and four or five instruments that are no way associated to Metal just don’t appeal to me as they did to the thirteen year old I used to be. Most of these bands are useless and only a few now appeal to my bitter palate. There must be more out there, but hey I don’t have the time to look. So why someone of my stature and ultimately tasteless nature would be doing reviewing a Gothic Metal album?

The gods wished it upon me. As a reviewer I am entitled to my opinion. As my readers, you are entitled to hate it and send me mail. That’s our relationship, and it’s been nice hasn’t it?

So what we have here is NEVETHERYM. A Gothic Metal band from Australia. Ahh, Australia, the land of kangaroos, deserts, talking mice, and uptight political douchebags who can’t seem to find time for anything other than banning violent video games, oh and a lot of douchebags in general too, but hey let’s not get into that now shall we? Anyway, NEVERTHERYM offers me their debut EP and I must say, I’m actually quite surprised. Mostly because they’re not just some run of the mill Gothic Band, no NEVETHERYM are a Gothic band that have embraced their Doom Metal roots while at the same time embracing outside instruments and downplayed the pretentiousness.

This EP, “Rendezvous”, contains three songs, all of significant length, and all fairly enjoyable. The opening track, “Dawn”, basically lays down the foundation which the rest of the album is built on. A slower chugging mixed in with moderate pacing and a violin harmony with subtle vocals and harsh growls. It’s a standard fair in the Gothic scene, however to these reviewer’s ears it’s still very enjoyable and very well done. “Hourglass” is fantastic, the riffs are absolutely brilliant in this song, especially when everything drops and this great guitar lick comes in leading to a great speedy riff that one can actually headbang to. Odd as most Gothic Metal seems to leave out the Metal part. The closer “Rendezvous” is actually pretty good too, mostly because the vocals are absent most of the time and instead are replaced with harmonious yet melancholy. The violin in this song takes center stage and it’s done extremely well and with restraint. I love it. It’s a fucking brilliant song.

The vocals are really the only complaint I have of this album. They are not abysmal by any means, but the clean vocals are all the same, low and droll….same goes for the growls. Like I said, not bad, but nothing to really stand out or be complimented on. However as a whole this little EP is a great piece of music. Will I like the full length? Maybe, probably not, but who knows? I’ve been known to have decent taste from time to time. I think the length it was makes this EP great so we’ll see about the LP. But I bet a lot of you will dig this stuff and those of you into the lighter side of the dark side should check NEVETHERYM out.

(Online April 16, 2008)