We meet again the Russian band Negative Voice a few years after their long distance debut, Infinite Dissonance, which had highlighted their potential as a band author of a melodic death doom of great perspective. Today the group presents itself with several new features: in fact, in addition to having become a quartet with the entry of Alex Nikolskiy bassist to flank Evgeniy Loginov (vocals and guitar), Andrey Samsonov (guitar) and Konstantin Pavlov (drums), stands out as an element of discontinuity with the recent past a sound less dependent on the models that emerged in a decisive way in the previous work (Daylight Dies) to push towards post-metal and progressive shores, going to place the Muscovites on a similar plane, albeit with substantial differences, the current label mates (Echo). This partial metamorphosis arrives all in all unexpected since the partial derogations to the orthodoxy of melodic death doom did not make, however, presage a shift so decided towards more ethereal and progressive sounds, in the broadest sense of the term; the most important thing, however, is the fact that this “change” is accomplished through a performance always fluid and flawless. If there remains a certain underlying drama, the melodic component is mainly developed in the passages in clean vocals superimposed, for the most part, to rarefied sounds and it is precisely the alternation with the ever-present progressions of death doom matrix to give the album the brilliant eclecticism that makes it worthy of attention. And so Cold Redrafted gives three quarters of an hour of evolved music, nervous and melodic at the same time, where the tutelary deities become Opeth rather than the champions of death doom: a choice that at first may confuse the fans of the latter genre but that, after several listenings, will find inevitable sharing in the light of the quality expressed by the Russian band.
Nightmare Everlasting and Lighthouse are the tracks in which Negative Voice manage to make the two souls coexist at their best, but all in all the whole work is maintained on very similar levels, highlighting moreover executive properties that allow them to push themselves in technically demanding passages without coming out reduced. A successful record that, if it makes us lose a potential top-level band in the death doom field, it makes us acquire a brand new one able to produce a relatively fresh and certainly stimulating sound.

2016 – Hypnotic Dirge Records