The Wake
ODE TO MY MISERY

November 2003
Released: 2003, Spikefarm Records
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

The Finnish melo-deathsters started out under the Bleeding Harmony –moniker 5 years ago already, in 1998 to be more exact. After going through some line-up changes and having done some demos/promo-tapes, the band finally landed with a record deal with Spikefarm Records four years later asfetr bein formed, in 2002, and the very first fruit out of the deal between both parties is called ODE TO MY MISERY, containing 10 “gothenburg´ish” melo-Death Metal songs that hark back to the times of the older In Flames stuff and some other similar sounding melodic Death Metal acts from the Gothenburg are more than just only occasionally. In all honesty, there´s nothing new or ground-breaking in The Wake´s sound that you could have heard before. Everything that you are going to hear on the band´s debut, sounds disturbingly familiar. But for their advantage, I also need to defense them a bit even if the band really glows and shines with almost too familiar Gothenburg´ish elements in their own brand of a very melodic Death Metal sound, these young and obviously very passionate and extremely devoted musicians execute their ´Finn-burgish´ a damn fine way, having included many catchy and somewhat memorable elements into the songs and overall sounding like true pioneers in that particular, now almost ´eternally banned´ field of metal.



For their loss, however, I´d also like to say that if they churned out ODE TO MY MISERY in the mid of the ´90s, they more likele would be a so-called ´hot name´ in the melo-Death Metal scene, being hailed as the true innovators of this type of melodic Death Metal by many and probably having been traveled around the world even a few times, I guess. Now they are unfortunately a bit too late ´coz all the steel for this type metal has already been invented and created for a few hundreds times and there really isn´t any other way for me to twist the truth for them, well... (eh?), ´any other way´ (wow, that´s really rhyming...!!). But like I said, even if they don´t bring anything new out from themselves musically, they are still able to serve a bunch of well-crafted and good sounding songs on ODE TO MY MISERY and undoubtedly many will find The Wake´s debut very appealing and tempting for themselves for sure. Just like I did, for instance.



“Murder One” and “Deep Silent Dead” are just two damn fine examples out of the guys´ sharp pencils to write good tunes, so go ahead and check them out if your ears aren´t too infested by the Gothenburg –style of melo-Death metal yet. Might even work out for you...