Having guest musicians on your album is a double-edged sword. Do you do it for personal satisfaction because you admire them or for better promotion? Do you do it because you think they are ideal for the songs you have written or do you want to upgrade them with their quality and experience?
Anyway, the Israelis Tomorrow’s Rain have a lot of guests on their debut album “Hollow”. From 2002 to 2011 they had the name Moonskin without releasing anything and this is just the first material they present to us. As you can see, for various reasons it took a very long time for them to take this step.
Let’s go to the guests, who are mostly well-known names in the metal scene. Deep breath for guitarists Greg Mackintosh (Paradise Lost), Jeff Loomis (Arch Enemy, ex-Nevermore), fellow countryman veteran Schlomi Bracha (Machima) and singers Aaron Stainthorpe (My Dying Bride), Kobi Farhi (Orphaned Land), Fernando Ribeiro (Moonspell), Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow The Sun), Anders Jacobsson (Draconian), Lisa Cuthbert (solo, ex-Draconian, ex-The Sisters Of Mercy), Sakis Tolis (Rotting Christ) and Spyros Antoniou (Septicflesh).
The truth is that I started listening to it with some prejudice, since all this seemed excessive to me. Of course, from the names of the guests and the hazy, dark cover, Tomorrow’s Rain could not play anything else than atmospheric doom/death metal. In “Hollow”, they give us eight songs with a total duration of fifty minutes.
The music of the Israelis isn’t something we never heard before, but it is a good result which gets a lot of influences from most of the bands mentioned above. Heavy and mournful compositions, most of them quite lengthy (only one has faster tempo), with riffs and keyboards that contribute to the atmosphere the album wants to build and dark melodies, when they exist (there should have been more). In some songs a traditional instrument is heard, but I did not understand what it is.
The vocals have a variety, as the singer Yishai Sweartz uses both whispers/recitations and growls, to which of course are added the clear and extreme ones of the many guests. And here is the main problem with this album. As I said at the beginning, the guests overshadow the band itself. Yishai’s vocals are unfortunately not that good, especially the growls, and the guitar work of Mackintosh/Loomis stands out easily even for the little involvement they have, that is, one song each.
It should be noted here that “Into The Mouth Of Madness”, in which Loomis participates, is dedicated to the legend Warrel Dane, with the lyrics borrowing words/phrases from songs of the mighty Nevermore. Loomis has an amazing performance but it sounds like it does not fit with the rest of the material. Also, as final song, they chose to cover “The Weeping Song” by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds.
Not a bad album of course, in the area of doom/death it is an interesting attempt. But they should not have so many guests. Personally, I feel that purely in the musical part it came out as a disadvantage for the band since the performance of the other musicians is superior to theirs.
I should also mention that “Hollow” was released in a version where the lyrics of the album are in their native language. However, I will look forward to their next work because they seem to have good ideas. If they continue without the problems of the past and rely more on their own strength, the result will be better in the future.
