A Dream of Poe – Lady of Shalott (2010)

Doom Metal is a an art that has been slowly dying in the last few years with more bands switching to the more ‘lucrative’ Gothic Metal scene or just starting off as a Metalcore band. Luckly today we have A Dream of Poe, as you can expect and Edgar Allan Poe inspired Doom Metal band from Portugal with members of In Peccatum.

In this 5 song and 36 minute EP the band does a great job in crafting crushing songs that will make you want to dig up your older My Dying Bride albums and get on full-on melancholic mode. Starting with the slow (it’s Doom Metal!! what do you expect!) self-album-titled song “Lady of Shalott” the band quickly sets the tone in terms of down-tuned guitar riffs and mournful vocal atmosphere.

Since the first song, Paulo Pacheco delivers a solid vocal performance that perfectly fits the overall mournful feeling of this powerful release. For a period of 8 minutes the band crafts a very slow and painfully crushing atmosphere that is very well maintained through this short-but-sweet EP. The second song on this album it’s a shorter version of the first one, and in our opinion it adds nothing (except minutes) to this EP. The slow growls and female vocals are also a very nice addition to the overall depressive state of this song.

“If Only Tonight we could Sleep” also opens up with My Dying Bride-esque riffing and takes its sweet time to build-up into another Doom Metal anthem, which is a cover of a song by The Cure. Again, the vocal layering is pretty effective; the only problem with this song is that it’s too short (could have been easily extended) and we kind of feel cheated when it ends so abruptly.

The beginning of the next song “Laudanum” immediately reminded us of a slower version of MDB’s “The Forever People” and then it drowns into a hypnotic trance of powerful riffs and solid drumming. Here the band goes all the way and keeps repeating some chorus sections allowing the song to clock around 10 minutes of play time.

The last song on this EP “Whispers of Osiris” is probably the most ‘aggressive’ and also the best crafted song in the album. Showing more originality in this song, the band uses a very enchanting keyboard atmosphere and slow drums to create one of the most trippy passages of this release. The riffing is spot on, and it adds that guitar ‘weeping’ feeling that we love about Doom Metal release.

In general, “Lady of Sharlott” is a very solid EP that will surely please all fans of Doom Metal. The band has the chops to craft powerful songs, but we feel that the high similarity in their sound to other bands (particularly MDB) brings down their musical efforts a bit. If all songs had been like “Whispers of Osiris” then we would have easily given this EP a score of 90 or better since this song actually has a different sound from other bands.

Release: May 30st, 2010

Country: Portugal