Rain Fell Within proves to be another rare underground metal band with both equally important lyrics and music that feed off each other to adorn our sense of hearing. Coming from the clutches of a freshly broken heart, an honest feeling of depression and mourning will be found beneath the veil of the "gothic doom" category you may see this bundled with. Normally I’d hate stuff like this based on that term alone (more due to the clueless bands making up that scene vs. the actual concept itself). Judging a book by its cover, I figured this would be something interesting & doomy but not my cup of tea… and WHAM! Congratulations. "A False Reality" is the probably the first song to ever really bring me to the brink of tears out of nowhere, and after only a couple listens (Trelldom did it with "Sowar Dreyri", but that took quite a few spins and it’s more to appease suicidal urges than have fun listening to). You simply cannot resist listening to what words this voice is so desperately trying to get across… and successful she is, for every time I push play, vocalist Dawn Smith grabs me by the throat and hoists me up, her words pouring into me like hot lava through a small child, filling me with sinister goose bumps as I follow along, "…see my imagination, into my pulsing veins… within my aching heart, you seem to ease the pain…" The way she sings that line alone destroys me, it’s like I wonder how she managed to record an entire album of this and not cause everyone in the studio to drown in a lake of both her own and their tears. I guess I’ve been missing something all this time, even The Cure couldn’t do this without the proper occasion to help. On the other hand, I’m almost thankful I didn’t have this back at that time, I would have probably swallowed my heart whole. I’m glad they opened with this song as I may not have given a fair chance otherwise. The rest of the material isn’t quite as intense, but strong enough to keep me listening especially due to the lyrics. The following track, "Alone", is a bit more "typical" in the slower, somber yet not too grudging sense of what I’d expect from this style. Title track "Believe" hits home, speaking of an angel, "Beauty lays within me… why can’t others see? On Earth I’m sent to change life, but this I no longer believe…" and the depressing content of "Sorrow Becomes Me" treads toward suicide as a solace from this lost love. It should hit any adolescent angst you can recall when thinking the world was a much bigger place. A great closing track, "The Sun In My Wound", marks the end of this life, featuring Dawn singing alone with faint, dream-like keyboards behind her. Her majestic, innocent voice is the commanding force in this band, used plentifully with multiple vocal tracks all attacking with so much refreshing power. The music seems to be worked around this, fairly simple, melodic doom blending keyboards and dual guitar parts, as well as a clean bottom end via fretless bass (best heard on "Believe"). Acquiring Tim as percussionist was a brilliant maneuver, he knows the meaning of energy and how to keep a song moving. If more bands could find a drummer like this, maybe everything wouldn’t be sucking so much lately. I encourage the rest of those who have also grown serious distrust of the "gothic doom/operatic vocals" idea… don’t get turned off by any assumptions with this one, here at last is a gem of a release that should sit well in any sincerely passionate music lover’s collection. A deservedly better production and this band will slay.

Written By: Abbas