The Deathship Has a New Captain
[Prophecy Productions]

I have been waiting for a full length debut from this band for a long time. Ever since I downloaded the sample of 'The lone night rider' from their first demo, I knew this band was going to be right up my alley, figuratively speaking.

Anyway, Ulf Theodor Schwadorf of Empyrium had grown tired of doing the whole folk metal deal, and wanted to do something a little more…scary… So he paired up with Allen Konstanz, and formed The Vision Bleak, and they are scary indeed. Musically it sounds like this should be the soundtrack to a horror film. The vocals are mostly all clean, in that there are few growls, but they are still very very scary vocals. A few of the songs have some female vocals too, not really scary ones, but not cliché either, they don't seem out of place at all. The guitars have a very thick sound, but not so much that it feels like there is too much bass, I am quite impressed, and scared. Throughout the album there are bits of narration too, and they really add to the whole atmosphere of the album. I guess the narrator, Otto Mellies, was the voice for Saruman in the German version of The Lord of the Rings films. Err, not that that really makes a difference to the music, or narrative passages themselves, but Saruman is pretty scary…

I had only heard one song of the first demo that was released a while back, but The Lone Right Rider off that demo was re-recorded for this album (or at least remixed, it sounds a little different), and I would assume at least a couple of the other three are on this album too.

The album I got (the 2 CD limited edition) came in a digipack, and even though I hate them with a passion, this is a really nice one. Now I know that's what everyone says about digipacks that end up being cool, but seriously, it's very cool. It's got a matted yellowish colour on non glossy paper, so it makes it look very old, and scary of course. And the picture on the front is pretty hilarious. Maybe it's supposed to be scary, but it doesn't work out that way. I don't know which guy is which, but the guy on the left with the mustache is too funny looking.

As for the bonus disc that comes with the limited edition, it's pretty neat too. It features 5 songs from the album, but done with a string ensemble. It's nothing amazing, and truth be told I have only listened to it a handful of times, but it certainly is cool to hear every now and then. They aren't really full versions of the songs though, but only 2 minute summaries I guess you might say. Ah, and the vocals on the string version of The Lone Night Rider are pretty funny too, yet cool at the same time. I am still trying to figure out they are a joke or not.

Anyway, if you like horror music, I think you would probably be very scared by this album. The inspiration from old horror films is everywhere, and it serves to give the album a feeling that others haven't given me in a while, a scary feeling…