Portugal has been on my musical map recently, and now Moshpit PR has sent me another release to check out. Lisbon’s prog death metal act Painted Black has been active for over 10 years, releasing two demo releases before putting out their debut full-length album “Cold Comfort” in 2010. Fast-forward to 2017, the five-piece has launched their sophomore effort “Raging Light” via Italian label WormHoleDeath.
The core of this new Painted Black longplayer is the closing track “Almagest,” which is a 17 minutes highlight. he song is a treat for prog fans. But the song and the album is much more — it comes with a level of heaviness that will be highly-acclaimed by death metal supporters. The epos starts calm and soulful; some heavy moments spice up this tune before symphonic line accompanied with Daniel Lucas’ growls takes over the scene. I was more than once reminded of Opeth, listening to these well-crafted sound construction that stands for the skeleton of this masterpiece. After such a sonic storm it's the final chapter that brings back the calmness after the storm.
Even though I put the closing track into the spotlight in this review it's the entire album that brims with power, harmony and brutality, each of these components blending in perfectly.
This group deserves a much higher level of awareness since they combine harshness and filigree songwriting to an exciting universe of sounds. Thumbs up.
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