Raintime is a band I liked quite a bit until now. Their unique and sometimes wonky style of crunchy, keyboard-laden Power Metal mixed with Finnish Melodeath and some progressive elements was most evident and endearing on their debut album: Tales From Sadness. While by no means perfect, it had a charm and catchy sound that had me listening to it time and time again (I even put it on my MP3 player for the Japan trip I took last summer and listened to it more than any other album during my stay). Despite some admittedly “un-metal” aspects, it still made for a great album that was fun to listen to and not nearly as shallow as a great deal of other Italian Power Metal bands. The follow-up, Flies & Lies, was certainly a step down in quality, and lost much of the individuality that their first album had, but was still a somewhat enjoyable listen.

Psychromatic though, is either a radical turning point for the band and/or the undeniable nadir of their career. So much went wrong with this album: the artwork, the vocals, the songwriting, the keyboards, the production, and the list goes on. The style of music hovers somewhere between nu-Finnish Power Metal and modern Hard Rock, which will annoy Metal purists but presents a more pressing problem I will discuss later.

I'm almost tempted to do a song by song review since I could point out something that uniquely pisses me off in each and every one, but most of songs are so samey and follow such a simple pattern anyways that I can comfortably describe most of them for you:

The main annoyance with the majority of Psychromatic is that the songs are too reliant on the chorus. Each song plays out a bit like The Muppets' version of Mahna Mahna (see if you can follow my wacky analogy here): You start with one or two keyboard or guitar riffs, usually pretty decent but nothing spectacular. The song jumps to the chorus as fast as humanly possible then goes off on a tangent, perhaps a new riff or breakdown or solo or what have you, which peters out and starts to lose focus, eventually snapping back to the chorus. The analogy being that the songwriting plays it very safe, sticking to a poppy chorus as the main hook with very little exploration or buildup, much like the two cow muppets weirding out poor old Mahna Mahna who wants nothing but to explore new musical territory.

The production gives the guitars very little space, and makes them have a kind of radio-friendly “Heavy Metuhl!” tone. The riffs are simpler and less melodic than they used to be, with very little variation and quite a bit of repetition. This does not lend well to the breakdowns that permeate the album, and while I admit there are breakdowns on Tales From Sadness, the fact was that they were often accompanied by little solos or interesting keyboard work. The vocals, even when they aren't awful Metalcore-like screams or whiny and poppy singing are severely lacking in their delivery. Much of the time the vocalist uses annoying electronic filters that distract from his great voice. I miss the heartfelt singing of Tales From Sadness, which was often a bit silly but welcoming and fitting with the tone of the music as a whole. On Psychromatic the vocalist rarely opens up and shows us how talented he can be. The keyboards and synths opt for a different style than what was heard on the earlier Raintime albums, and in my opinion add nothing to the songs where once they buttressed the excellent guitar work with a sorrowful, yet beautiful atmosphere.

As a matter of fact, the biggest problem with this album is how everything fails to come together. It sounds as though all the instruments are coexisting rather than cooperating, and that the various pieces of the songs are all jostling each other for the listener's attention. The result is many three-to-four minute songs that all follow a very simple, modern rock pattern but try to cram more ideas than should be in a radio-friendly song. The result is a very jarring experience which is not enjoyable to listen to in any capacity, either as a rich and complex Power Metal album or a collection of modern Hard Rock hits.

There are a few good parts to this album that keep it from being totally unlistenable. This is still undeniably a Raintime album, and as such is full of melodic hooks and catchy vocals (often too much). Opener Fire Ants is good, though unadventurous, and is one of the rare times on this album that all the elements of the band work in unison, more or less (though the voice filters still bother me). Beaten Roads is part brilliant and part ridiculous, and does feature aforementioned screamed vocals, but has surprisingly good riffs and . . . a Thrash Metal solo. No joke. It's a bit out of place and feels too short, but is still a nice surprise. Closer Walk-On Actor is also interesting, and for once has some semblance of atmosphere which has been absent for the entire album. It's overly long compared to the shortness of the previous material, but doesn't drag very much and hearkens back to Tales From Sadness, especially towards the end of the song.

Lacking in atmosphere and emotion, bland and generic, Psychromatic is symptomatic of Raintime losing their identity and sound. While I will admit that it gets better after listening to it a few times, it plateaus at a level of mostly annoying and occasionally decent. I see little hope of the band regaining the magic and charm of their old sound, as even a throwback album would almost undoubtedly fall short of Tales From Sadness and Flies & Lies.