The Spiritual Bat – Mission:Create (Album – Swiss Dark Nights)
Genre/Influences: Gothic, Dark-Wave.
Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.
Background/Info: This is the fifth studio album by Italian Gothic formation The Spiritual Bat. Previous works have been released by Alchemisti Music and mainly Danse Macabre Records. A live album was already released by Swiss Dark Nights.
Content: The album sounds in the tradition of the band. A perfect mix between Dark-Wave reminiscences reminding me of The Skeletal Family (for the guitar playing) and a Dark-Goth/Rock approach. The songs are driven by female vocals injecting a true bewitching effect to the production.
+ + + : The Spiritual Bat stands for passion, which is emerging from the vocals and the guitar. There’s a bombastic touch running through the work creating a very personal approach. This is a fully enjoyable production without real potential hits, but cool songs.
– – – : The songs are missing little details to become potential hits. It’s maybe about choruses, which don’t have a true elevating effect. I also regret that the album features only 9 songs.
Conclusion: The spiritual Bat is a warrant for well-crafted Goth-Rock music with a personal approach.
Best songs: “Sanctu”, “To The Kuiper Belt”, “Heroes Anymore”.
Rate: 7½.
Artist: www.facebook.com/thespiritualbat.band.page
Label: www.facebook.com/Swiss-Dark-Nights-Records-348565442615812
About The Spiritual Bat
The Spiritual Bat is an Italian gothic rock act formerly known as Spiritual Bats, active across four different line-ups between 1993 and 2008. Early material included the “Spiritual Bats” vinyl EP, the unreleased rehearsal tape “Confession” (1996), the “Sacrament” EP and the album “Through the Shadows”, the latter originally recorded as an instrumental work before vocals and drums were added by Claudio Mura. Swiss Dark Nights reissued this early catalog as the “Origins and Transmutations” 4CD boxset in January 2023.
The band’s 2017 album “Your Own World – And the Vision of Sound” was released on Danse Macabre Records. The MCD “At the Edge of Life”, featuring guests including Stephen Carey and Shir-Ran Yinon, followed on Swiss Dark Nights in March 2022, ahead of the fifth studio album “Mission:Create”.
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
