Fall of the Leafe
VOLVERE

March 2005
Released: 2005, Firebox Records
Rating: 0.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Let´s take a quote straight out of the press kit that arrived with the new album of Fall of the Leave to me: “The album brings together seamlessly the pioneering sound of guitar-driven Gothic Rock, atmospheric British Rock, progressive Rock and the heritage of Scandinavian Metal. Perhaps not a chart-breaker this one, but surely a rewarding experience for a listener who demands more than a sonic wallpaper...”.



Well, this may well become some sort of a chart-breaker indeed over the course of time as Gothic Rock has generally managed to keep its stinky leather-covered black´n´white –head up for so long already, at least in the European music markets.



As far as the abovementioned ´rewarding listening experience´ goes, well, I haven´t gotten quite to that point yet. In fact, I am still looking for it, which will probably never happen, because - VOLVERE is crap. Yes, I said C-R-A-P with 4 capital letters!! There is not even the slightest thing on VOLVERE that could possibly cause me an ear orgasm or make me wet in any other peculiar way. All I got was a maliciously godless headache by spinning the album halfway through before I realized to come to my fucking senses and stop listening!!



What on earth happened to this band that blended Death and Black Metal with Skyclad type of Folk influences? They had such a tasteful and successful recipe back in the day. I have only heard the 1st two albums from them - EVANESCENT, EVERFADING (on Defiled Records in ´89) and AUGUST WERNICKE (on Argentine Icarus Records in ´99) and I remember liking them. I admit I haven´t had the chance to hear the band´s 3rd album, FERMINA (also on Icarus ´02), but somehow I think I´m glad my curiousity never got the best of me. Especially if they had already started drawing nearer to a pile of dogshit Gothic Rock world alá VOLVERE compared to their nicely pleasing first 2 albums.



Please, do all of us a favor – cease to exist for good… or go change the band name to something else for sake of your old fans that anyway happened to dig your past releases. Aww... oh damn, next please!!