Tony Tears — Follow The Signs Of The Times

Follow The Signs Of The Times sees this  Italian project progress from a solo project into a fully fledged three piece band. Past work from this project has seen a often quirky & wonky blend of  doom metal, moody horror to space fed 80’s styled synth fare, woozy psychedelic ‘n’ kraut rock grooves, and  mournful ‘n’ creepy cinematics.  Now as a full band affair the sound is still fairly similar, but it  has a much more formal song structure to it- which has its good & bad points.

I first became aware of this project after the excellent three disc 2015 collection Music From The Astral Worlds, which brought together a large selection of work from the project from between the years 2000 & 2014. And I was particular taken by the longer more quirky & experimental tracks from this collection- this new album is very much more about streamlining the sound into a more formal rock song structures, with the ten tracks here falling between two & eight minute mark.

Sonically I guess you’d say the sound now is a blend of horror rock, doom, metal, synth based  Italian rock in  horror film sound tracking mode. The majority of the tracks here are more vocal based, and vocally these tracks mix together wavering ghoulish meet 80’s metal, to more theatrical & horror dramatic horror like( think a blend of  lower toned King Diamond & less crazed Mr Doctor).

I’ll have to admit the first few times I played this through I felt a little under-whelmed & disappointed by the whole thing, feeling the new set-up had lost a lot of the more bizarre & wonky edger’s of the past material. But the more I’ve played this you do start to pick-up those more quirky edges still- sure it’s most certainly more ‘song’ based & approachable, but they are still there.

All in all it’s nice to see projects sound develop, change & grow, and while I’m still not as taken by Follow The Signs..., as some of the projects past work- it’s not a bad a record, by any means. And if you’re new to the band, and come from a more formal horror rock based mind set this maybe a better place to start.