Weeping Birth was first conceived back in 1999 as a two-piece and the demo, 'Officium Tenebrarum' was recorded that same year. In 2000 Vladimir Cochet parted ways with bassist Lionel and this album was wrote and recorded by just Vladimir, but not released and Weeping Birth was put on hold. Before releasing this album back in September of 2003, Vladimir created several other solo projects (Unholy Matrimony, Mirrorthrone, Deafening Loneliness and Accurst Journey), which have also brought him considerable attention.
Weeping Birth plays extremely brutal semi-technical death metal mixed with the sound of symphonic black metal, which forms together a very unique sound that you really don't hear that often. The thing I truly admire about this album is that there’s so much variety present. Most of the time the music reaches speeds of insane fury whilst at other times can be slow and gloomy or even a little epic occasionally. The same goes for the vocals since they appear in the form of low death growls, grim black metal screams, spoken and cleanly style vocals. The death metal vocals are the most frequently used, yet they remain interesting and very hateful throughout the entire recording. The spoken & clean vocals are done rather well and have a strange mysterious feeling to them that works quite well with the music.
The drums are performed via a drum machine and while you can easily tell they are programmed they have a metallic/industrial like feeling to them. The drums also have an epic feeling on several tracks on this album thus once again proving the large amount of diversity this album holds. The keyboards often have that old Dimmu Borgir, Emperor or Gehenna symphonic style to them that's haunting, epic and very ethereal sounding all at once, plus the occasional piano thrown in only enhances this atmosphere further. The guitar playing is often times hard to hear due to the vocals, drums and keyboards being more audible, but when they are present you’ll be hearing some excellent guitar playing. As for favorite’s it’s almost unfeasible to mention any single song since there all very, very good, but since this is a review I’ll simply say track three, ‘The Mental Bloodtide’ is the brightest spot on the record for me.
In addition the artwork is another high point of this release. Yes, yes you guessed it, Vladimir even did the artwork. He has his own web design company called Weeping Web, which makes websites, logos and album artwork.
After this album Weeping Birth was put on hold again, but I just found out that Vladamir put out a new album back in 2008 titled, 'Anosognosic Industry of the I,' which I'm hoping is as stunning as this debut release.
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