CD review: Tearstained by Charon

Tearstained is the second full-length album. It contains 11 songs with interesting titles such as Christina Bleeds, Sin or Holy. One big positive thing for me is that they left out the growls. The female backing vocals remained the same. Tearstained contains one acoustic ballad.

Worthless – the opener represents for me Charon the best: guitars, female vocals and gloomy lyrics.

Sorrowbringer – one of the slower tracks with piano parts.

4 Seasons Rush – JP uses mostly his low register and also cello is used. This one belongs to my favourite ones.

Christina Bleeds – another typical Charon song containing guitar solo but this time no female vocals.

Deepest Scar – basing on first couple of seconds one would say that it’s another heavy track but as the song progresses the track evolves into heart-broken confession.

The Drift – the shortest one but for me the best track of Tearstained. I wouldn’t absolutely mind if Charon release one day acoustic album. JP voice works great with acoustic guitar and cello.

Sin – this is kind of blaming, confessing mixed together with determination to die for “you” very interesting.

Holy – here you can hear probably the longest guitar solo in band’s history.

Your Christ – on the other hand this track is one of the faster ones. To be honest I skip this one.

As We Die – I like this track mostly for its guitars and for the first time ever I’m gonna say I don’t like the backing vocals. In my opinion they don’t fit into the track.

The Stone – even though this track is almost 6 minutes long it’s not a boring one. Slower parts are mixed together with faster ones and it still sounds good and keeps listener attention. I am quite picky when it comes to longer tracks. Usually I get bored pretty easily because some of them just repeat the chorus like 1000 times and lacks dynamics.

All in all this is another good album of Charon. My personal favs are As We Die, The Drift, Deepest Scar and The Stone.

CD Review: Sorrowburn by Charon

When I came across Charon couple of years ago the first song I listened to was “Colder” from the “Songs for the Sinners” and JP voice really mesmerized me. I have crush on deep male vices. So I went through their discography and I was quite surprised when I listened to Sorrowburn. It is definitely different from the following albums. It has death metal elements because Charon was supposed to be death metal act. Since I am not really fond of this metal genre I’m really happy that this is the only album containing death metal stuff.

I find the cover funny. Maple leaf! I have nothing against maple leaves, but I find it strange, that “death metal” act chooses maple leaf as the cover and also as a part of their font.

Burndown - nice 2 minutes long acoustic piece. This is my favourite song. Though it is somehow “out of place”, when you compare it to the rest of the songs. But it shows that the band is also able to make “soft” song and still it sounds great.

Wortex - this song has an interesting guitar solo and also some good female backing vocals.

Breeze - death metal piece and one of the heavier songs.

Serenity - another nice song, even though at the beginning it sounds like a ballad but as the song progresses it sounds much heavier at the end.

To Serve You - this one I skip, but it has catchy chorus.

Nightwing - bit of growling, but honestly I don’t mind it that much. Also I like guitars in this one.

Neverbirth - I find this song really sluggish, not because it is almost 7 minutes long, but because it fails to attract my attention. After 4 minutes it has really nothing to offer.

Kheimos - another growling here growling there. I skip it because growling makes me nervous.

November’s Eve - I don’t like this one.

Morrow - the longest song with interesting intro. During these 8 minutes the mood of the song and also its tempo changes couple of times, which is good in my opinion, because it keeps the listener’s attention. It belongs to my favourite songs of this album.

To be honest I don’t listen to this album a lot. Yes Burndown is among Charon’s songs which I really like, but this album with its “death metal” feeling isn’t really appealing to me. All I can say is that I am really happy that they decided to leave the growling out of the following albums.