REVIEWS

Vampire Magazine (www.vampire-magazine.com)

Having been impressed by the music of EM Hearst two times already in his other project called very suitably Torture Wheel I was very curious what this Wraith Of The Ropes would be. This project is a two-man project so EM Hearst has found a soulmate to share his twisted thoughts with, this other depraves soul goes under the name of Scarecrow Rottinghouse. All this together should have made it all clear that the music presented on this conceptual album is nothing but heavy depressing music…

Depressing music, rather impressive and remarkably original, actually. Long-drawn drones that last easily over ten minutes a song are completed with pounding drums and lyrics that makes you cut your own writsts. Musically there are some comparisons to be found with the light industrial sounding Torture Wheel and Dutch psychedelic LSD trip on music Planet Aids. Also fans of Khanate and Sun O))) should definitely check this out for it captures pretty much a similar kind of atmosphere which seems to be rather popular according the rave reviews and reactions the recent releases of both aforementioned comparisons and Earth for instance has been getting over the last few weeks. They claim not to be doom metal, which is rather remarkable to me as this is very much a doom metal record though with a lot of droning ambient influences, yet they say this is mostly influenced by horror-soundtracks. Well, the result might be a horror-soundtrack, but the guitars in a track like "Lake Of Decay" for instance are very typically reminiscent with the riffs used in funeral doom songs all the time. Yet, all the soundclips and samples that are shattered all over the place gives this whole album an eerie and rather creepy atmosphere. And they have the right effect, completed with the rather frightening lyrics, I really advice you to read along the lyrics with the music and play this CD loud on your headphones in order to fully experience the total package this Wraith Of The Ropes comes in. Last noteworthy thing is definitely the last track of the album, "Snow Dragon", which is an impressive heavily orchestrated composition of trye beauty, instrumental and slightly lighter than the heavy-weighted other tracks of the album, a nice closer for this amazing debut-album. As I am informed well we can expect a new EP any day now and a new full-length album somewhere in October. Bring them in!