One: Unseen: One

One: Unseen: One is the debut album by Finnish melodic doom/death metal act Scapes that is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Olli Pirkkanen. Opening track 'Caring is Gone' pins there flag to the mast as a delicate acoustic guitar serves as an introduction to the two key components of Scape's sound. First is the vocal delivery of Olli Pirkkanen himself, which is deep and clean throughout and carries an impressive impassioned gothic vibe. Second is the emotive guitar melodies that are played over a grinding mid paced rhythm section, which, although taken out of the melo death/doom handbook written by Paradise Lost, Opeth and Katatonia, are still extremely well crafted. Both of these components are perfectly atmospheric and serve as suitable building blocks for a myriad of further ideas to weave their way through the seven songs on offer such as occasional outbreaks of prog on 'Unseen Infinite' and 'Every Waking Dawn' or the fully acoustic 'A Song of a Mountain', which wouldn't sound out of place being sung by the Dwarves in the Hobbit Trilogy to the far more aggressive and up-tempo 'The Melancholy Cycle'. Each track while superbly written never quite soar when you feel they should, still they all build up to the sterling climax of 'Doomscapes' that combines all the elements that precedes it and evolves into a bombastic and anthemic doom laden epic of delicate verses and surging crescendos.