Last Chapter

The Living Waters

(c)1998 Pavement Music

(p)1998 Brainticket Music

Review by Neil St.Laurent

Thanks to Pavement Music for the CD

Starting as a trio back in 1989, this, once known as Brick Window, band has come a long way through the years to produce "The Living Waters" in 1997, which caught the attention of Pavement Music. As with their prior recordings, and still without their own vocalist, the band has again enlisted the talents of Robert Lowe, vocalist for Solitude Aeturnus.

The opening track for this CD is an uninspired synth melody, and it won't be mentioned again. In general the true synth (it may be what is referred to as the guitar synth, but just sounds like cheesy old horror movie sound effects) is distracting and without merit, this doesn't go for the rest of the normal keyboards though.

As a likely product of their roots as a trio (drums, bass, and guitar) the music is very much centralized on the typical metal sound, complete with soloing. The guitars move from flowing melodic rhythm into broken chunkiness, and at times they provide a little bit of clean reprise. At times the band seems confused as to their direction, will they be a metal band, or a progressive band, either way this lack of direction ends up producing a fairly original combination that is generally intersting to listen to. The vocals of classic doom vocalist Robert Lowe certainly lend a lot to that progressive sound. Overall a sound that sometimes, if you can recall, almost sounds like a subdoed Nuclear Assault.

Aside from the annoying synth, "The Living Waters" offers something original that should please the average metal listener. While quite a bit simpler than most progressive metal it may still manage to please fans in that scene as well. Not a very mature sound, but in the end a quality recording.

Last Chapter is:
Jason Spradlin - Drums
Darrin Davis - Guitars
Cody Griffith - Guitars
Terri Pritchard - Bass
Studio:
Robert Low - Vocals (Guest from Solitude Aeturnus)
Bill Pohl - Synth Guitar

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