Having released seven studio albums between 1995 and 2009, Theatre of Tragedy are one of the most iconic, well-known and revered gothic metal bands of our times. One of the things that I appreciate the most about this band is their constant willingness to push boundaries and experiment with new genres that they showed time and time again throughout their career, to the point that it is hard to find two albums in the band’s discography that sound exactly the same (something I cannot say about most bands I listen to).
With their first two albums (their 1995’s self-titled debut and 1996’s Velvet Darkness They Fear), Theatre of Tragedy kickstarted the whole “beauty and the beast” gothic/doom metal scene, which then became dominant especially in Europe in the second half of the 1990s. However, by their third album Aégis, the band had already started to leave behind that scene, veering towards leaner gothic rock/metal aesthetics with clean vocals and catchier melodies. In 2000 Theatre of Tragedy changed even more dramatically, embracing strong electronic and industrial influences and releasing two albums, Musique and Assembly, that had almost nothing in common with the band’s early records. After splitting with their lead singer Liv Kristine Espenæs in 2003, Theatre of Tragedy changed once more their sonic direction with an album, 2006’s Storm, that stroke a balance between the early gothic metal of Aégis and the electro-pop of Musique and Assembly. Their final album, Forever Is the World, went even further back in time, rediscovering some of the doom/death influences that had marked the band’s sound in their first two albums, thus bringing the band’s discography to full circle.
As some of the former band members are working together with record label Cosmic Key Creations to re-release deluxe 25th anniversary vinyl editions of their first three full-lengths, at The Metal Observer we take a step back and reassess Theatre of Tragedy’s impressive studio albums catalogue.
#7 – FOREVER IS THE WORLD (2009)
Like its cover art, which incorporates elements from the covers of all the band’s previous studio releases, Theatre of Tragedy’s final album is a sort of musical compendium that has the ambition to amalgamate all the styles the band had experimented with throughout their discography. From doom/death gothic metal to leaner, pop-tinged atmospheric rock, to electro-gothic, Forever Is The World covers the whole gamut of styles that one can find in Theatre of Tragedy’s discography. Does it work? Almost. In a few episodes (“Hide and Seek”, “Revolution”, “Frozen”, “Deadland”, the title-track), the album succeeds in recreating the glory days of the band’s past work, but these strong tracks are alternated with much less inspired material (“A Nine Days Wonder”, “Illusions”, “Empty”). Moreover, the album feels a tad too disjointed and encyclopedic, which may be inevitable given that it tries to synthesize the sound of a sprawling and multi-faceted fifteen-year career. Ultimately, Forever is the World is an album that bears the signs of a band that has perhaps reached the end of its tether, but it is nevertheless a more than dignified closing chapter for an act that has spent a decade and a half at the forefront of the gothic metal scene.
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#6 – MUSIQUE (2000)
The late 1990s saw an increasing number of iconic doom/death bands experiment with new sound directions. From Paradise Lost to Anathema, many bands decided to leave behind (at least temporarily) the doom metal of their beginnings and explore new ways of expressing their dark and melancholic feelings. The most shocking change of direction, though, must surely be that taken by Theatre of Tragedy with their fourth full-length Musique, an album that cancelled almost every single aspect of the band fans once knew. There is no trace of the band’s doom/death beginnings on this album, nor of the more straightforward but still heavily metallic gothic approach showcased on their third full-length Aégis. On Musique, Theatre of Tragedy explore a whole new sound, halfway between industrial metal, EBM and electro-goth music. The vocal styles of the band’s two singers, Raymond Rohonyi and Liv Kristine Espenæs, are also completely different compared to previous albums. Raymond has nearly completely ditched his growling style, in favor of a robotic, half-spoken singing style that brings to mind Kraftwerk and the krautrock movement. Liv Kristine abandons her operatic vocal style and adopts a more modern and poppier approach instead. It’s a completely new take on the “beauty and the beast” aesthetics that Theatre of Tragedy contributed to popularize in the second half of the 1990s. And the revolution does not stop to the music: gone are the Old English lyrics and the band’s romantic image of their previous three albums, replaced by modern lyrics about city life, computers, machines and sex, and a new look made of leather jackets and dyed short hair. It’s a big, bold change of direction that did not fail to impress me back in 2000. However, today I feel this sonic experiment is only partially successful, mostly because the album lacks variation: after the initial surprise of the first couple of tracks, it all feels too unidimensional and formulaic, making it somewhat hard to distinguish one song from another.
#5 – THEATRE OF TRAGEDY (1995)
There are some albums that hold an iconic status in the metal community, and Theatre of Tragedy’s self-titled debut is certainly one of those. Released in 1995, this album laid the foundations of the female-fronted gothic metal scene, providing the blueprint for countless artists to follow. The formula relies on the notion of “contrast”. Contrast between the crushingly slow riffs and oppressive tempos of death/doom metal and the lightness of instruments like piano, violin, and acoustic guitars. Perhaps all the more iconic is the contrast between the cavernous death growls of male singer Raymond Rohonyi and the ethereal, soprano-like clean vocals of Liv Kristine Espenæs, which led critics to dub the approach “beauty and the beast” metal. Even the lyrical themes are based on contrast, inspired by Romantic themes of dualism between life and death, love and hate, joy and pain. Of course, this was nothing completely new back in 1995, as other metal bands had occasionally relied on these compositional elements in their music. What is perhaps unique about Theatre of Tragedy, however, is that they took these elements and put them at the centre of their music, purposely making a whole album out of it. Despite its iconic status, the album is a bit hit and miss. It has some strong moments, like “A Hamlet for a Slothful Vassal”, “Mire” and the acoustic threnody for piano and voice“… A Distance There Is …”, but elsewhere it suffers from the lack of strong and memorable melodies both in the vocal department and in the underlying instrumental background. There is also a certain tendency to overindulge in oppressive, difficult-to-assimilate compositions, which makes the album somewhat of a chore to go through from start to finish. The band will soon learn to write much better melodies, and already their follow-up album Velvet Darkness They Fear will constitute a dramatic improvement in terms of accessibility and enjoyment of the overall listening experience.
#4 – STORM (2006)
Released in 2006 after two brave but controversial albums like Musique and Assembly and after a split from their iconic original singer Liv Kristine, Storm is an album that, understandably, plays it safe. It finds the band retracing the footsteps of their sound somewhere between Aégis and Musique, to the point that the album has been described as the “missing link” between those two records. There are still industrial influences and electronic loops surfacing here and there, and the music retains a poppy and energetic feel, with choruses filled with ear-candy melodies that are catchy and immediate. But the guitars make a definite comeback and so does the piano, an instrument that had played a major part in Theatre of Tragedy’s early records and had been relegated to the background in the latest albums. New singer Nell Sigland demonstrates she is a strong replacement for Liv Kristine, with a warm, powerful voice that, while less elfin and ethereal than Liv’s, fits well with the album’s sound. The formula works well for the most part, although not all tracks are equally strong and in the long run the record somewhat succumbs to a feeling of sameness in the songwriting department. Overall, Storm may not be as bold as Musique and Assembly, nor does it reach the level of sophistication and mastery of Aégis, but it nevertheless showed that, after a rather turbulent period in their career, Theatre of Tragedy were still alive and well.
#3 – ASSEMBLY (2002)
Theatre of Tragedy’s fifth full-length album Assembly continues the musical discourse the band had undertaken on their previous record Musique, with songs filled with glitchy electronic loops, sinister robotic vocals and catchy choruses. But Assembly sounds much more assured and mature than its predecessor, both in terms of songwriting and performances. There is much more variety between the songs, injecting depth and dynamics into a formula that otherwise would have grown stale very quickly. Next to catchy, hook-oriented electro-goth numbers like “Universal Race” and “Envision”, we have heavier and more sinister tracks, like the mean, industrial-heavy opener “Automatic Lover” (one of the best songs of the album), as well as eerie electronic dreamscapes like “Starlit” and “Motion”. The band seems more at ease with the new sound direction, especially the two singers Raymond and Liv Kristine, who put in more convincing and expressive performances than on Musique. As a consequence, it is much easier to connect at an emotional level with this album. There is an aura of melancholy that pervades its eleven songs that is quite irresistible if you are a fan of dark gothic atmospheres. Of all the post doom/gothic metal albums released by the band, Assembly is the record I enjoy the most. It sounds fresh and eager to explore the boundaries of the band’s possibilities, but it also has a maturity and subtlety that elevate the album to a different level compared to its predecessor Musique.
#2 – AÉGIS (1998)
After releasing two albums laying the blueprints of the “beauty and the beast” brand of gothic metal that saw a commercial explosion in the late 1990s, Theatre of Tragedy could have easily kept milking the same cow by releasing one or two more albums in that style. Commercially, it would have been a more than sensible thing to do. Instead, in 1998, the band released Aégis, dropping almost altogether the doom influences and the cavernous death growls of their previous albums, and veering instead towards a more energetic and accessible form of gothic metal that is closer to the 1980s darkwave and goth rock scene than the doom/death metal scene that the band came out of. It was a bold change that results particularly effective when the band manages to write tracks that are lean, direct, and with strong melodic hooks, like the single “Cassandra” or the groovy “Aoede” and “Poppea”. While other tracks may be a tad less impactful, the album flows well from start to finish and it has a cohesive atmosphere that is dark and dramatic without being excessively morose and oppressive. Groovy, energetic, and catchy, Aégis is a treasure-trove of delights for those who like their metal laced with fishnets and leather.
#1 -VELVET DARKNESS THEY FEAR (1996)
Released in 1996, Velvet Darkness They Fear is the quintessential “beauty and the beast” gothic metal album and the true apex of Theatre of Tragedy’s catalogue. It has everything the genre is known for. The songs are long and slow-winding, built around flowing structures that twist and turn and rarely go back to familiar motives more than once or twice. The riffs are dark and doomy and keep accelerating and decelerating in the course of a song, giving the music a dramatic and oppressive feel. The piano is omnipresent, weaving a tapestry of arpeggios underneath the thick distortion of the guitars, creating a beautiful contrast that adds to the dramatic atmosphere of the songs. Raymond and Liv Kristine trade superb vocal lines throughout the album, producing mesmerizing duets between ethereal female vocals and cavernous growls. All these elements are used to perfection in this album, which strikes a miraculous balance between sounding extreme and accessible at the same time. It is a formula that countless doom/gothic metal bands have tried to master over the years, often unsuccessfully. On their second attempt, Theatre of Tragedy nailed it, writing multiple all-time classics of the genre, like “Der Tanz der Schatten”, “Fair and ‘Guiling Copesmate Death”, “Black as the Devil Painteth” and “And When He Falleth”. If doom/gothic metal is your poison of choice, make no mistake, Velvet Darkness They Fear is the real deal.
