Coronatus
Raben Im Herz

Seven albums in eight years, Coronatus has to be one of the most industrious bands out there today – not many bands release close to an album per year these days. Raben im Herz is the name of the seventh album and it is released almost exactly a year after the previous album – an album that we liked here at Hallowed. And the band has the same line-up as then, maybe this one can be good as well – although the high pace with which they are releasing their album might also suggest that they are rushing their work a little because albums these days aren’t like albums in the vinyl era when bands did release an album a year very frequently, those albums were much shorter. So what about the new album by Coronatus, are they delivering the goods?

Well, musically they are delivering what we have come to expect from this band in terms of sound and style – no surprises. The dual female vocals, the symphonic parts and all of that are as well made as ever – the nine tracks show decent variation and the playing time is definitely manageable for me as a listener. Carmen does her soprano stuff really well and the vocal duets works brilliantly, I think the little rougher way to start the album is pretty cool and that may be the only thing that feels slightly different compared with what we usually get from this band. I think this is the solid production we have come to expect from this band, you can hear that they know what they are doing.

But, knowing how to make a well-sounding album and making a great album are two separate things and this album is not as great as its predecessor or as the best albums that we heard earlier in the career of this band. I think they are repeating themselves and the songs are mainly just copies of what they have already done, most bands end up there sooner or later and that has to be a signal for them to move their music in a different direction. Thing is though that those who haven’t heard Coronatus before might see it differently as there aren’t a shitload of bands that sounds like them but this album don’t really stand out that much from the common gothic metal either but the combining of lyrics in German and English probably gives it a slightly different sound. Problem with this album is that it isn’t as good as something from the Porta Obscura, Fabula Magna period and it even a step back compared with the predecessor from last year, in a way it is hard to see a point with the album.

Sure it is a good album and the opening track along with the title tracks is a pair of real highlights on this pretty good album. Still, I cannot really shake the feeling that Coronatus is slowly becoming more and more uninteresting as it is the trend if you look at their latest works. I know they can do better and they need to stop repeating themselves and start reinventing themselves – still, it is a pretty good album and might be worth checking out.

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