REVIEWS

Doom-Metal.com (www.doom-metal.com)

Lately the funeral doom genre seems to have approached a barrier where it becomes hard to be original and many bands start to sound alike. However, once in a while all genres experience the coming of a band that defies the trend, creates something completely unheard of and do it so well that your skin crawls. Wraith Of The Ropes is one such band and 'Ada' is clearly a classic in the making.

The darkness that shrouds the music is unlike any other that I've heard from a doom band. The closest match would be the classic horror aura of Iced Earth, although the band have little in common with them otherwise. The simple but haunting piano is responsible for much of this feeling, reminding me of old horror movies like "Psycho". I also found it to fit almost perfectly with many scenes in Sin City. The vocals are incredibly distorted, giving them a vile and inhuman quality. The riffing is slow, rough and filled with bass. This gives it some of the same gravitational pull that Khanate has. Finally there are the industrial and ambient elements that enrich the mood.

It was hard to know what to expect from the lyrics. They could have been macabre, depressed, nihilistic, horror-related or insane, and all of them would have fit perfectly. As it turns out, they're all of the above. Everything is spelled out brutally and very graphically. Nothing has been censored. It brings out the very essence of self-hatred.

'Ada' has too many aspects to describe them all. The music sucks you in and you can feel the touch of evil on your breath. I had goosebumps constantly when I first heard it and I still get them. This is the funeral doom release of 2005. Something to make all of those sunny days go away.

"I don't care what kills me as long as I die".

-Arnstein H. Pettersen