Combining Black and Doom metal has always been a challenge for musicians and the output is usually very interesting. The same applies to Michael Krall's solo project, Black Autumn. Even though Black Autumn was intended to sound something in the vein of Norwegian Black Metal, and the album preceding to Rivers of Dead Leaves, ie, Ecstasy, Nightmare, Doom had a thin sound and typical Depressive Black Metal atmosphere, this album shows a change in sound as Black Autumn takes a more Doom Metal-oriented sound.
The experience of listening to Rivers of Dead Leaves can be described as taking a walk along the coast in a cold, foggy morning. The sound of the album, rather than being outright depressing, or having a feeling of impending doom, has a serene and mellow feeling to it, despite its basic genre, which is a combination of Depressive Black Metal with layers of thick guitar sound akin to Doom Metal. Don't get me wrong, the riffs generally play a melancholic pattern in all but one song, and the lyrical themes, though atypical, do not deal with anything bright or shiny or colourful. Yet, its not the usual tremolo-picked riffs and high-pitched wails deal here. The vocals are rather drowned and rasped, or whispered. The drum machine never sounds annoying, even though it plays a rather repetitive pattern, thanks to the fact that it is mostly hidden beneath the bassy, thick guitar riffs so it doesn't grab any more attention than needed. The songs always maintain their pace, but the variations in the riffs are enough to keep a person listening to it and avoid redundancy. One of the few downs in the album is that certain songs are not very notable or memorable, but songs like the title song, A 1000 Years In The Water, Oath and Ophelia are highly memorable songs, which still brings us a good ratio of 4:6. Another down is that the album takes some time to grow into You might feel like skipping a few songs when they're halfway over, unless you take time to listen to each one carefully.
The album has it flaws, is not perfect, and its sound may not be what people expect from it, but from my side, Rivers of Dead Leaves is a great effort by Black Autumn and is definitely up there among my favourite Black Metal releases.
(No CD available at Amazon.com, and the title is sold out. Buy other Black Autumn titles from http://www.wrecked-up.net/blackautumn/distro/
If you like Black Autumn, check out Gris)
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