Update: The Foreshadowing have been added to Marduk & Moonspell's "Voices of the Dark" North American co-headlining tour in February/March 2013 and these shows will mark the band's North American debut.

The Foreshadowing's third disc, Second World, takes me back to the last (Brooklyn) incarnation of L'Amour as I can still remember seeing bands like Lacuna Coil and Moonspell sometime around 2002-3 and The Foreshadowing would have fit well alongside either of these bands. The Foreshadowing are an Italian atmospheric goth-metal band that has been playing high-profile festivals and generating a buzz in Europe but is just now breaking into the US market after signing with Metal Blade. To add some additional color to the 'goth-metal' label - The Foreshadowing sound something like Some Great Reward-era Depeche Mode (less the industrial clanking) meets Woods of Ypres.



The Foreshadowing formed in 2005 and released their debut disc, Days of Nothing (Candlelight Records), in 2007. This first disc was a concept album about an imaginary apocalypse wished by an insane ordinary man and this new disc continues this apocalyptic vision. Second World is guided trip through this post-apocalypse world where the listener gets pulled in by the densely atmospheric and cinematic melodies, which are complemented by singer Marco Benevento 'new romantic' baritone, but there is a dark melancholia in the music that creeps up out of the darkness. The music consistently stays close to its slow-burning 'gloomy' core and, while there are some moments of aggression from the guitars and drums, never reaches the crushing epic doom of some of the band's contemporaries. Second World is more about 'painting' a bleak aural landscape than crushing the listener with waves of despair.

The disc starts off on a strong note with "Havoc", which opens with the sounds of rain and fire before the down-tuned guitar riffs and pounding beat kicks in. Nothing is 'by-the-books' in this universe as the band strips back the pounding rhythms mid-song for a chanted snippet of "Gloria in excelsis Deo" before building back the rhythmic pulse of the song beneath the chant. One of the other standout tracks in the front-half of the disc is "The Foresaken Son", which has a harder-edged guitar sound than its predecessors. The band's sound all comes together on the back-half of the disc with swirling "Reverie is a Tyrant", which ends with the clanging church bell over the chanted "Lord's Prayer" and the world-weary "Colonies", which has a brilliantly executed acoustic opening and closes with an acoustic guitar outro.

The Foreshadowing haven't yet made it to North America but my guess is that the band's signing to Metal Blade and the label's reissue of The Foreshadowing's last two discs will see this changed in short-order.

Links:
The Foreshadowing