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Fountain of Tears - Fountain Of Tears

Artist:	Fountain of Tears
Title:	Fountain Of Tears
Label:	Mental Music MMFT01-2
Length(s):	60 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1999
Month of review:	11/1999

Line up

Joe Daub - drums
Erik Ney - bass
Mike DiDonato - guitars
Jeff King - keyboards
Anna DeRose - vocals
Sheree Kunkle - vocal narration

Tracks

1)	Survive	6.34
2)	She Wants To Be	6.38
3)	The Sleeper	6.03
4)	Carousel	5.35
5)	Real	5.22
6)	Survive	6.34
7)	She Wants To Be	6.38
8)	The Sleeper	6.03
9)	Carousel	5.35
10)	Real	5.22

Summary

I'd never heard of them, but as you can see they have an album out. It should be considered a mini album however since it contains only 30 minutes of "fresh" music, the latter half being the instrumental version of the first half. Hence I consider this to be a mini album instead of a full length release.

The music

The album opens in a somber and melodic way with piano and then the singer sets in. Vocally she is somewhere between the singer of All About Eve and Tori Amos. The music can also be understood as mix of those, but this band also has quite a lot of heavy guitars, yet they are always in the background. Hence some people may even be reminded of The Gathering. Still in the band now under scrutiny the keyboards/piano is much more important. The vocalist sound quite pure, but it seems she may have trouble singing forcefully and also she becomes a little less well articulated in the lower regions, but her voice does carry some emotion. Other names that are of interest are Iona and Enya (the piano), but in both cases the music played here is darker and heavier (because of the guitar of course), but certainly not less melodic. The song ends in bass solo. The line of the previous song is continued onto the second track, She Wants To Be, but it turns out to be more up-tempo with some noisy guitars in the back. After a break (some nice audible basswork), the song becomes somewhat marchlike, but the piano theme keeps on running through the track. Again, a very good melody by the way. The way it is all worked out owes more to neo-progressive than the previous track. The Sleeper is based on a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. No singing here, but only a telling of the story. The song is clearly more symphonic than the previous track and has some classical leanings and sounds quite dramatic. It opens with carillion. Very good. Here the guitar is more prominent and we move into the direction of progressive metal. In Carousel we go back to the style of Iona, a mid-tempo piece and not as good as the previous track. The vocals could use a little more bite here. The album sort of closes with Real, which is in the style of the previous work but with a not so interesting metal guitar solo. The repetitive fade-out is quite nice.

The artwork is very nice and reflects the atmosphere of this work well.

Conclusion

I liked the songwriting on this album, but it shows that the band should try to put in some more variation, preferably also by a more varied use of the vocals. Best tracks are the first and third and references are Iona, The Gathering, All About Eve and even Tori Amos (in the vocals) and Enya (the piano). Very melodious stuff with heavy (rhythm) guitars and lots of piano. A band with I think a large potential, but they should also be aware that on a next (more lengthy) album they shuld take care to introduce some "new" things to alternate with what seems to be quite their "own" style (notwithstandig the many references).