Lacrimas Profundere – Bleeding The Stars

Label: Oblivion
Releasedate: 26/07/2019

Wow! Lacrimas Profundere is back with their 12th album Bleeding The Stars. Wow, indeed because it is an exquisite album in my opinion especially because it resembles the era of Antiadore and Grandiose Nowhere.

With the above mentioned latter album, I first heard of Lacrimas Profundere and along with the myriad of gothic rock ear candies, such as The 69 Eyes, Charon and HIM, I started rocking out to LP. However so much has changed since the Grandiose Nowhere era in the LP front. Their second lead singer after the original -now the band’s lyric-writer Christopher Schmid (also the guitar player and band founder Oliver Schmid’s brother), Rob Vitacca has left the band literally giving the microphone to the new bass baritone singer Julian Larre on the M’era Luna stage in 2018. Vitacca has lastly made the both highly acclaimed and condemned (by some) album Hope Is Here with the band in 2016.

Larre’s gothic vocals are very much reminiscent of the band’s first lead singer Chris Schmid which is to the pure bliss of the long term Lacrimas Profundere fans. His scream vocals are good like Chris’ but I especially grew fond of his brooding clean bass vocals which sometimes reminds me of Ville Valo. Coincidentally, Larre also resides in Helsinki, Finland so I guess the inspiration and interaction can definitely be found there.

Coming to this amazing record Bleeding The Stars, so much can be said for the tracks one by one. Each of them are delightful as they are melodic through and through but also there are some new-found elements in Lacrimas Profundere’s music in the year, 2019. These elements can be seen in tracks, “I Knew and Will Forever Know”, “Like Screams in Empty Halls”. These two really bring a fresh breath of air to the goth rock scene and somehow gave me the feeling that they could be the soundtrack of the imaginary remake of the movie Shining in 2019. Give a listen to those and you’ll know what I mean. There’s scream vocals and some serious black metal riffs right out of Behemoth albums. First single off the album “Father of Fate” starts with the guitars that Lacrimas P. is known and loved for, though we music writers always love namedropping the other bands when it comes to describing the genres and the music. “Father of Fate” is so distinct that you know right off the bat that it is fucking Lacrimas Profundere as soon as the track starts. So this one, you do not need to compare its style to another band. These guys are goth rockers from Germany but still unique in their own way. “Kingdom Solicitude” definitely has that Lacrimas Profundere element to it but also it calls Wolfheart and Amorphis to mind, meaning it has this great North European melodic death metal vibe to it.

All right, coming to my absolute favorites, personally I loved the sound of “Celestite Woman”. It sounds like your most favorite gothic bands in the whole world like Sisters of Mercy, The 69 Eyes (the goth anthem makers -hence the anthem feel in this track), Lacrimas Profundere and HIM have gathered and made this track. But I guess all it took was Oliver Schmid and Julian Larre to make this happen so kudos to them! “The Reaper” has that kind of Venus Doom feels to it with Larre’s vocals and cool vampiric lyrics, it is also the most alternative rock track on the album. “After All Those Infinities” is everything I expect from a rock track, just for my taste exactly. Catchy lyrics and chorus, great riffs. “Mother Of Doom” is as brooding as it gets and makes you wanna look down from the edge of a cliff with your earphones on. “A Sip of Multiverse” easily could have been a track on the Hope Is Here record. The guitar solo here blows you away like a sharp Northern wind. “A Sleeping Throne” is also a brooding one but with proggy feels this time with the rhythmic drums and the overall atmosphere of the track.

Oh man, I’m loving this record a lot! If our magazine had that feature of scoring the albums, I would give this one 10 out of 10 because honestly, an album of this sorts is why I write about music. I just hope it will relate to goth rock/metal listeners in the way it did to me. I promise it won’t be a remorseful experience for those.

Line up:

• Julian Larre – vocals
• Oliver Nicholas Schmid – guitars
• Dominik Scholz – drums

1. I Knew and Will Forever Know
2. Celestite Woman
3. The Kingdom Solicitude
4. Mother of Doom
5. Father of Fate
6. Like Screams in Empty Halls
7. The Reaper
8. After All Those Infinities
9. A Sip of Multiverse
10. A Sleeping Throne

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