The Vision Bleak- The Wolves Go Hunt Their Prey

Artist: The Vision Bleak
Album: The Wolves Go Hunt Their Prey
Label: Prophecy Records

If you are at all familiar with the band Empyrium then you already have an idea of what Germany's Ulf Theodor Schwadorf can do. With The Vision Bleak, Ulf and bandmate Allen B. Konstanz play what some would call gothic metal. While I would have to agree with that for the most part, that's a little bit vague when describing the sound presented on their third full-length album on Prophecy Records,"The Wolves Go Hunt Their Prey". The Vision Bleak take elements from doom metal, mid-paced death metal & goth metal and they even incorporate some Egyptian themes on three of their tracks titled The Black Pharaoh Trilogy. These three songs seem a bit out of place when looking at the album as a whole and I think they would have been better placed on an EP. The final track on the trilogy is Part II: The Vault of Nephren Ka and it was the most interesting track of the nine songs on this release. The acoustic part of this track, though a bit short, reminds you that this is the man responsible for all of those excellent releases under the name Empyrium. Besides these three there aren't any real standouts by themselves, the album kind of works better as a whole.  Allen's vocals have a pretty thick German accent to them that seems to work well with the music being played by him and Ulf. While Allen sings, plays keyboard and bangs away on the drums, Ulf handled the guitar and bass duties, while also playing keyboard as well. "The Wolves Go Hunt Their Prey" is a well played album instrumentally and overall, this is a decent example of what good goth metal should sound like.