HARVEST RAIN

"Blood Hymns"

OPN - 2007

CD

Blood Hymns is the most recent album released by South Carolina ‘s band headed by Jason Thompkins, composed by 14 tracks linked each other by a common frame: a musical journey starting in the Winter Solstice of 2002 and continued in the course of the following 12 nights of June.

It can be considered as a research for the Spirit told through the use, typical in Harvest Rain’s texts, of metaphors where natural elements become symbols of something more spiritual and profound. The lyrics’ style is "hermetic", drawing out in short sentences well adapted to the broken rhythm of the songs. What is most distinctive of Harvest Rain’s musical feature is the unusual contamination of the neofolk genre: every track can be easily referred to the neofolk tradition, but we can also recognize a darkwave sound giving it a melodic line and more variety if compared to recent neofolk productions. The atmosphere reminds that of apocalyptical folk historical bands and their 80’s works in the musical texture and in the themes they deal with.

The European folk roots (even though it is not an European band, all their recordings have been published by European labels) are present in the lyrics: images of ghosts and spirits recur like bonds to a remote world, like a legacy of an underground dimension where imagination, superstition and reality confound!
Best tracks: "Most Northerly Midnight", "A Gift Of Blood".

- Roberta T.

Website: http://cainriver13.tripod.com/harvestrain/index.html

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/opnrecords