Rainwound - Shrouded Destiny
Self-released - 2007
By Jordan Knoll
Wight is a busy man, having already released the lengthy pseudo black metal opus
Tribulation under the project name
Satanic Dirge (now known as
In Staid Grace) he returns with
Shrouded Destiny under the moniker
Rainwound. Such prolific productivity in a relatively short span of time must be creatively draining and thus hamper this, the second of Wight’s solo projects, you ask? Well, fortunately, the answer is not so simple. On the one hand, most of these prog and lite extreme metal syntheses are fairly simplistic in instrumentation, overly lengthy, occasionally repetitive and hampered by a poor sounding drum machine. While on the other, Wight seems to have captured a more tangible and fundamentally enjoyable atmosphere throughout the album that aids in lifting the work above its faults—if only ever so slightly. The instrumental,
‘Christmas’ seems particularly adept amongst its peers since it avoids the unnecessary meandering of the more gargantuan tracks and posits its musical themes immediately and builds upon them nicely before concluding.
Vocally, Wight seems to favor the no-frills clean approach similar to genre titans Mikael Akerfeldt or Dan Swano. And, although, much of the time his vocal lines are surprisingly solid it needs to be said that on occasion Mr. Strader shifts to utterly boring replications of the dominant melody already at play instrumentally. Again, this seems to manifest itself most in songs that are, quite simply, far too lengthy such as
‘Oppressing the Past’. In the future, it would be nice to see a more consistent vocal performance out of Wight, since he clearly has the chops required for the genre, but is impeded by occasionally overwrought and generally boring vocal lines. Instead, a more dynamic vocal counterpoint to the dominant instrumentation would not only be far more suited but significantly increase the quality of the work as a whole.
Overall, if anything is made clear on
Shrouded Destiny it is that Wight is absolutely bursting with ideas that he is itching to put toward the recorder. However, to succeed where he has failed here in the future more time is required for the musical elements to ferment holistically. That being said, for an amateur solo-project the result is surprisingly enjoyable throughout the many of its contingent parts—especially the much of the keyboard guitar interplay. Fans of prog in general should take notice of
Rainwound despite its flaws stemming from musical immaturity since its creator will, in time, have the ability to create the next great prog metal opus.
Official Rainwound Myspace
Official Rainwound Website
