Wicked Asylum – ‘Out of the Mist’ Album Review

I just realized I spend too much time thinking of good introductions for my articles. And the more I love the band or album I’m covering in that article, the more time I spend digging into my creativeness for a good way to reflect this love in a witty or funny way to start talking about it. So the longer the time searching a good introduction, the more love I have for the album and/or band. Keeping that equation in mind, here’s a meme.

Now that we have established the fact that I love this band and their album, we may begin.

Wicked Asylum is an Italian Metal band formed from five talented artists who we have had the pleasure to interview a short while back and talk about their debut album. If you’d like to read that interview with all five members of Wicked Asylum, click here.

Or here. (Same link, I’m just kidding in an attempt to make people giggle or throw something at the their screen in despair, or in case of mobile devices being used, throw their screens on something in despair)

Back to our subject, we’ve also had the pleasure of listening to the band’s newly released debut album ‘Out of the Mist’ and write a review about it.

Review

‘Out of the Mist’ is an album made from 10 tracks, running on about 34 minutes. Now I think the answer to the question of whether we loved the album is already known, and what is left is why we loved that album. So here are five things we loved about ‘Out of the Mist’.

The Instrumentals

Wicked Asylum were generous with their instrumentals throughout the album. The intro and outro tracks were perfect at taking us into the album and setting up the mood for what we’re about to listen to. And that’s really important when you’re making an album. That is the difference between having ten songs or having an album with ten songs. Add to that, the instrumental parts inside the songs were brilliantly times and made. Each time the vocals stopped for an instrumental part, we received a sufficient dose of music to take us from verse to verse or conclude or introduce a song. Examples on how that as brilliantly made can be found on songs like Sold(ier), Sun Will Rise, and Choke and Die.

The Vocals

Banshee’s voice is one of these voices that are just so wonderful and majestic when coupled with heavy music. The feelings she expresses (which will be spoken about later) and her method of singing is just brilliant. The grand quality of her voice can heard on songs like Sold(ier), Split, Threnody, and The Meadow of Sins.

The Movement and Feelings

One of the things I love most about music is when the artist manages to make you feel the words they’re saying rather than just hear them, or when the artist gets you to feel a certain movement through the music. A simple example on that is the famous ‘Crazy Train’ by the one and only Ozzy Osbourne. In the intro, the riff mimics the sound of a moving train, which sets your mind deeper into the lyrics and feelings the song is holding. This can also be done through vocals in the way the singer expresses feelings in a certain sentence that gives a whole new dimension of meaning to the words they’re singing.

Wicked Asylum did that on several occasions in the album. In Bleeding Rust, an extra stress on “I won’t stop hurting” gives the feeling of pain in the artist’s mind. In Split, the riff playing after the intro rings the lyrics to life. You feel her effort in the riff when she says “I’ll drag you all high”, and then feel the anger in the music and voice when she says “You’re crawling in blind”. Sun Will Rise, Out of the Mist, and Choke and Die are other tracks with movements and feelings being very well expressed.

The bridge between classic beauty and creativeness

Out of the Mist is neither a progressive nor an experimental album. The influence of classic Heavy Metal can be heard through the music and songs structure. However, Wicked Asylum did not fall in the trap of repeating their selves or making a album with no identity. The band’s identity is crystal clear through album from beginning to end, and the classical influences were twisted into a modern unique sound with the special signature of Wicked Asylum.

‘Sun Will Rise’

And that is my favourite song on the album and one of the reasons to love this album. Simply, this song has everything to make it stand out. The calm intro contrasting with the album’s heavy sound, building up to a wonderful chorus that is also the best on this album, the brilliant and touching lyrics, and again, the movement expressed in the music and vocals is just breathtaking. It’s like a storm kept in a bottle, ready to explode at anytime.

Other

We usually conclude the review with a paragraph about some things we did not like about the album or some things we think would have made it better. But since there are many more things that we loved and couldn’t talk about above, we will list more things we loved about the ‘Out of the Mist’.
The cover art is genius. Simple in a way, but also a great visual to introduce the album. We criticized some bands before for not adding extra vocals where it is needed at times. The guest vocals on Threnody is an example of why bands should at times have that kind of addition to their albums. It created a wonderful change in mood and more richness to an already rich album. The way each song has its own identity through different ways of introducing them and the different speed is also something we loved. And finally, the lyrics, at some moments reflecting deep emotions and at others riot and anger, in both cases brilliantly written.

We recommend ‘Out of the Mist’ for all fans of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock. It is a great album and a legendary beginning for a talented band that is expected to rise to greatness.

Ratings

Here are the average of the ratings that were placed by the FemMetal Team.

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