The Bleak Picture // Meaningless // Album Review

Having been founded in 2021 as a side project, The Bleak Picture released their debut promo in 2022, and then when the duo first got noticed.

Using The Bleak Picture as an alternative to their main band Autumnfall, the Finnish duo of J. Hänninen and T. Ruohonen began work on the debut album immediately and here it is. Billed as Melodic Death Doom Metal, you don’t need to listen for long to understand why this is classed as such a sound. As the opening guitars welcome you with a fuzzy reverb, before a cleaner version joins the mix, the drums add to this building up of sound before a gravel-like vocal – very Death Metal tops off the sound perfectly.

There is an undoubted Melodic aspect to the sound, it soothes and calms you as the vocal is the total opposite and when the drums are let free, they soon come crashing down and liven everything up.

The opening track is just shy of 11 minutes and ‘Prisoner of Your Sins’ is a very clear setting out of the band’s stall around what to expect from the rest of the album.

As the tracks meander from one to the next, you find yourself unwittingly in this bubble surrounded by dark, yet groove-led riffs, a prominent drum that cuts through the murkiness and then this vocal that is blood-curdling deep and growl that completes the sound so well. As the guitars chug and chop along leaving plumes of smoke behind them, you can just about imagine the glint of the symbols as the drumsticks collide with them cutting through the acrid air.

This 7-track debut album flies by as it grabs you from the off and keeps hold of you throughout. Not in a crippling-like grip but a firm hold that you know not to try and move out of – but saying that you won’t want to, other than making sure that repeat is turned on.

The occasional addition of a clean vocal in ‘Truth Divided’ adds to that Melodic angle that the band has going on and that extra layer is something that adds a little glimmer of light through the dark and doomy landscape.

I have rather enjoyed listening to The Bleak Picture and will be keeping an eye out for their future music as well as keep coming back to Meaningless.

Meaningless will be released Friday 22^nd 2024 via Ardua Music.

Review: Ed Ford