This album is very much in the same vein as The
Blood of Two Wolves, except Smolken, the main lunatic behind this
project, is performing everything. However, the pieces on this recording
are not improvised. As a result, there is much more to listen to musically
within each track. Added variety is supplied by including cello and electric
guitars on top of the acoustic guitar, which provides the bulk of the
music.
...But Inside They Are Ravening Wolves suffers
inexplicably from the same problems that plague The Blood of Two Wolves,
namely the vocals are way too low. The vocals themselves are more or less
identical to the ones on The Blood...: goofily exaggerated Eastern
European accented voice with random, roller coaster drama. Smolken is
in fact a Polish national who came to the US in 1986, but I still can't
help but think that the vocals are somehow put on.
And while moments of each song sound good in themselves,
the redundancy and total lack of separation from song to song, added with
the difficulty in hearing what Smolken is trying to say make things get
old really fast. Come to think of it, this incarnation of Dead Raven Choir
is in every conceivable way the poor man's version of Finnish folk/psychedelic
group Kemialliset Ystävät (check out the reviews below). So
if you either love Kemialliset even more than I do, then maybe spending
a few bucks on the quiet version of Dead Raven Choir may give you some
enjoyment as well, but tread carefully.
All related articles (interviews, live, from the vault)