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| Requiem: Mezzo Forte | 
 enlarge | Artist: Virgin Black
Label: The End Records
Category: Music
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $7.45
You Save: $7.53 (50%)
New (31) Used (7) from $7.42
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 11416
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 81
UPC: 654436008125
EAN: 0654436008125
ASIN: B000NJXC30
Release Date: April 3, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Requiem, Kyrie | | • | In Death | | • | Midnight's Hymn | | • | ...And I am Suffering | | • | Domine | | • | Lacrimosa (I am blind with weeping) | | • | Rest Eternal |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
An Expansive, expressive journey... statuesque and monolithic...delicately etched upon a canvas of gothic and classical beauty.
Album Details
All Scores were Composed by London and Escarbe, and Performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The Second of the Series, Requiem-mezzo Forte, Further Develops the Classical and Operatic Influences Within a More Identifiably 'metal' Framework. Combining Traditional Metal Instrumentation with Rich Orchestral Arrangements, Mezzo Forte Captures the Dramatic, Dark Melodic Sensibility that Virgin Black Fans have Come to Love and Respect. The Final Album of the Series, Requiem-fortissimo, is a Fierce Statement of Grief, and the Band's Heaviest Work Yet. Combining the Brutality of Death/Doom with an Unmistakable Sophistication and Majesty, Fortissimo Concludes the Series with a Display of Greater Savagery and Abandon. When the Complete Series is Played End-to-end, Listeners Will Be Treated to an Evolving Soundscape of Increasing Intensity. With a Total Duration of Over Two and a Half Hours, Requiem is a Unique Sonic Experience.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 A *trilogy* in this vein? PRAISE GOD. May 13, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Virgin Black carries AMEN into LAMENT. In their music, belief in God is no guarantee of peace. The music exemplifies what Ingmar Bergman called "the silence of God". The most similar band I can think of is Saviour Machine, which is about to wrap up a four-CD series based on the book of Revelations.
"Mezzo Forte" is the middle piece of a trilogy. "Pianissimo" will be choir and orchestra, while "Fortissimo" will sound like the Apocalypse with amps. For now, we get an even mix of doom-metal, choir and The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. For added fun, there's also a "Death Choir" including Virgin Black's frontman Rowan London. The lyrics alternate between English and Latin.
C-minor is the dominant key throughout the CD. From the opening "Requiem, Kyrie": "The hour of parting is at hand / Sorrow ever awaits on joy / And has rendered me to (pieces)". Susan Johnson's soprano soars over Rowan London's tenor. The strings are slow and gorgeous. Then the choir and drums punch in again on the word "Requiem", and my eyes close of their own accord.
Guitarist/co-writer Samantha uses restraint and simple melodies. (I expect on the third CD, shell knock us flat on our butts.) Dino Cielo's drums are slow and sparse, in keeping with the orchestration.
There are only seven tracks because most of them are longer than the line at the DMV. The closing "Rest Eternal" is basically a reprise of "Requiem, Kyrie", with unsettling strings and abrupt silence.
Virgin Black is making its way onto my pedestal for bands like Faith and The Muse and Led Zeppelin. The "Requiem" series will be as intense and exhausting for the listener as it has been for the band. I recommend this series and Saviour Machine's "Legend" series if you want to hear similar bands address the human soul from slightly different angles.
Buckle up and enjoy. Amen.
Wow April 11, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I have been listening to Virgin Black since they have come out. Sombre Romantic to me was one of the greatest "metal" albums that I have ever heard. I cannot tell yet but I think this album far exceeds even that. I think it is right up there with Nights in white satin from the Moody Blues( I know not metal). Except the whole album is just as impressive. By the way... This album contains not one song.. everything is a movement. An amazing masterwork. It's hard to believe that Rowan (singer) and Escarbe (guitar) wrote and composed this whole album!!! Keep that in mind!!!
Mezzo Forte in C minor.. It starts with this sort of heart clenching, throat choking beauty of a piece. Requiem Kyrie (which seems to be the theme of the whole album) is about as great a start off as any Dead Can Dance album. Powerful, moving, and EPIC!
It Gently glides into the next piece (one never really hears the transition) but this time the guitars crank in at about 1/3rd of the song. Upon first listen, goosebumps raced up an down my arms.. This piece is powerful. I feel a million emotions as Rowans growling blends with the distortion. Then His ever improving voice.. His singing is like that of a fallen angel. Whatever distortion there is, is played perfectly along with the violins.
The third song at first disapointed me. I mean, it was the heaviest song on Sombre Romantic (the first album) here to make a reprise. At first I thought the slower pace just didn't work. Then the ending came...... I realized how absolute and devastating this song really was. With the "death" choir I felt a doomsday sort of feeling.. Like that from the Exorcist. A power movement indeed....
Then come one of the gems ....and I am Suffering... this 12 minute piece is emotional as any song can get with out being retarted (see Yellow card for that one.) I almost wanted to cry. It was like Host of the seraphim, again Dead Can Dance, with guitars but entirely their own beast.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better then comes Domine!!!!
The best song on the album.. Quite possibly the most epic and most doomsday-ish song ever recorded... with enough sweeping melodies and enough growling to appease Sisters of mercy fans and fans of metal.
The album then sort of reverses and slowly starts to simmer to a beautiful resting place.... Note the better singing and better drumming on the enire album.
This is when you open your eyes and blow out the candels....
 Boooring... November 18, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I'm sorry, but I just have to quote Nigel Tufnel here: "It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black."
This is what happens when band's ambitions go unchecked by a presence of an outside producer. On Requiem mezzo-forte we see Virgin Black desperately striving to paint everything the blackest of black. Instead they manage to achieve something that I thought was impossible - recording an even more boring disk than their previous effort "Elegant... and Dying". Over the course of almost an hour the band is desperately trying to put the listener to sleep by means of tempos so slow, you could double them and still be under 100 bpm. That is supposed to convey the atmosphere of darkness and gloom, I presume. Too bad it doesn't.
Mind you, I'm a fan of dark music. Alice in Chains, Anathema, Opeth - these are all welcome guests in my CD player, and nobody can accuse these bands of playing happy music. But what they possess is the control over the dynamics. At some point Virgin Black had it too. Sombre Romantic was an excellent CD. It knew when to slow down, when to speed up, when to silence everything down to a whisper and when to crush the eardrums with an all-out guitar assault. In fact, it was the brilliance of Sombre Romantic that caused me to buy Requiem even though I thought Elegant was terrible. This is why it was particularly painful hearing them re-do "Midnight Hymn" and pretty much butchering it by slowing everything to a crawl and removing any heaviness from the song.
Is there anything good about Requiem? Yes, of course. The first track is pretty good and even has a catchy melody. Guitar tones are nice and crunchy (would have been even better if only they went somewhere beyond mere power chords). Rowan's vocals keep getting better and better. In short, it's not an utter failure. Furthermore, I'm still hoping that Requiem Fortissimo will return to the glory days of Sombre Romantic. All is lost but hope. But two stars is all I can give to this release.
In conclusion, I'd like to say: Rowan, Samantha, please, realize that guitar and cello have more than 2 lower strings. Tritone is not the only music interval. Minor chords are not the only chords in music. Whole and half notes can be further subdivided to form quarter, eighth and (gasp) sixteenth notes. And finally, darkness looks darkest when juxtaposed with the light.
Trilogy Likely to be Masterpiece April 18, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am a classical music enthusiast who also has a penchant for metal. In recent times I have been getting more into doom metal and gothic metal, and then there is Virgin Black, which really defies categorization--they combine elements of many kinds of music. And they are extremely ambitious and possess great songwriting ability, a most welcome combination.
This, the first release and middle section from a musical trilogy, is appropriately grand and morose. It is an almost even blend of orchestral and metal elements (with the Pianissimo album being mostly orchestral, and the Fortissimo being mostly metal). This is in my view their most mature and epic work, and is a clear outgrowth of their earlier albums, with the same passion but more skill.
The only notable flaw is the lead vocals, which have improved much since Sombre, but which are still not of the extremely high level demanded of for such an grandiloquent sound. However, this is a minor complaint and the earnestness and vocal effects of the singer more than compensates for some of the notes he can't quite get.
Highly recommended, either for fans of VB, metal fans with a taste for the grandiose, or classical fans who want to hear modern day masterpieces. Basically any music devotee will find much to praise in Mezzo Forte.
A Giant Step Forward for Virgin Black May 15, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having been a long-time fan of mournful musicians Virgin Black, I had highly anticipated any follow up to their brilliant Elegant... And Dying. When I heard they would be releasing a 3-part set featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, I was elated. Mezzo Forte is the second disc in the trilogy, featuring a healthy mix of orchestra and Virgin Black's typical stylings.
My first comment would be to mention the sound production, and hats off to Rowan London and Samantha Escarbe for pulling off such a full, rich and heavy soundscape. The orchestra comes through fully and clearly, the choirs sound powerful and beautiful, Rowan's singing has never sounded this good and the rest of the band is mixed in flawlessly. All of this creates a dark, heavy and powerful listening experience. Secondly, I have to mention that Rowan's growled vocals have come a long way in the past few years. Where he has previously sounded contrived or strained, he now sounds strong and deathy. And check out the "death choir" on a couple of the tracks here.
The songwriting is fantastic, and the CD flows smoothly from start to finish, each song a separate entity yet forming into a well-executed storyline when listened from beginning straight through to the end. Highlights for me are the mournful ...And I am Suffering (track 4) as well as the powerful and staccato Domine (track 5). There are no weak songs on Requiem: Mezzo Forte, every track plays wonderfully into the overall experience.
Highly recommended, and a vast improvement from a band who, I feel, have even more brilliance ahead.
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