Tomorrow’s Rain – Ovdan Review

Tomorrow’s Rain is an interesting beast. The Israeli six-piece treads between doom and gothic metal, and made a splash with their debut Hollow in part because of the sheer number of guest musicians who participated in the album. Now, four years later, the band returns with their sophomore full-length, Ovdan (“Loss”), an album with a deeply personal backstory. This was recorded after vocalist and founding member Yishai Swartz suffered a heart attack severe enough to warrant open heart surgery. The result is a noticeable shift in sound for Tomorrow’s Rain, but one still grounded in the band’s founding principles—and yes, with a lot of guest musicians chiming in. Knowing all of this, it’s easy to come into Ovdan with high expectations—but I’ve always been a “let the music do the talking” kind of listener… so let’s talk about it.

As mentioned earlier, the music Tomorrow’s Rain plays sits somewhere between doom and gothic metal. The vocal style—or styles; there is no singular style on an album with four guest vocalists—shifts between baritone and tenor singing and fairly standard roars or snarls. The music supports this approach, favoring grim, bleak, or downright angry riffs backed by extensive keyboard work for melody or atmosphere. Guest musicians appear on five out of ten tracks; singers Andreas Vingback (Dark Funeral) and Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus) on “Roads,” Attila Csihar (Mayhem) on “Muaka,” Michael Broberg (Unanimated) and Anja Huwe (Xmal Deutschland) on “I Skuggornas Grav,” and Jan Lubitzki (Depressive Age) on “Burning Times.” Michael Denner (Mercyful Fate and King Diamond) also contributes guitars on “Turn Around.” Across these songs, I can also infer inspiration from other acts—”Roads” opens the album with a saxophone melody that invokes White Ward, while the acoustic passages on “Muaka” remind of Rosk. “Turn Around” is a lean and mean gothic metal powerhouse that vaguely resurrects Charon. All of this is to say that there is a lot of influence from all kinds of metal informing the Tomorrow’s Rain sound here on Ovdan.

It would be a monumental task to blend all of the above into an album with a singular, cohesive identity. While I couldn’t say Tomorrow’s Rain does a poor job with this, I’m not convinced they fully rise to the occasion either. The trouble is that some styles work better than others, resulting in an uneven album. Take opener “Roads,” for instance. The album opener carefully treads through six minutes of bleak, shivering atmosphere; the low cleans a perfect complement to the dismaying music. There are subtle synth leads, the aforementioned saxophone, and a really strong vocal performance. Then, without warning or buildup, the song erupts into a seventh minute of metal that feels at odds with the rest of the song. “Burning Times” stands stronger, with great piano leads and a heavy, gothic feel. It is a very good song, but the only one that sounds quite like it on Ovdan. Elsewhere, “Muaka” is a very well-written song, but the ugly snarling performance from Csihar is completely at odds with it, and the juxtaposition makes the song unlikeable, rather than memorable.

What Tomorrow’s Rain does extremely well on Ovdan is atmosphere. “I Skuggornas Grav” is one of the best songs here, a hauntingly quiet piece that gives singers, bassist, and keys real chances to shine. As much as I didn’t like “Muaka,” its acoustic intro and synth-led outro are phenomenal. Similarly, “Convalescence” shines through its plucked guitar leads, cathartic narrations, and gorgeous string sections. This becomes a pattern throughout Ovdan—in an album that seems to be looking everywhere for an identity to call its own, these emotional, atmospheric passages shine as its true strength. Songs like “Room 124” that focus on being “just” metal don’t really make an impact on me. But “I Skuggornas Grav?” Those echoing cleans will be in my head for the rest of the day now.

From Hollow to Ovdan, Tomorrow’s Rain give the impression of a band still trying to find the sound that works best for them. There’s a little bit of everything here. Some of it works well, and some of it isn’t so great, but all of it has meaning, feeling, and care. There’s a great base here, a good foundation for something great to come. Ovdan isn’t quite it, but it gives plenty of reason to think it won’t be long before it’s here.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: AOP Records
Websites: tomorrowsrain.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/TomorrowsRain
Releases Worldwide: April 19th, 2024