Band: Mandrake
Title: Innocence Weakness
Label: Greyfall / Grau Music
Distribution: Soulfood / Sure Shot Worx
Release date: May 14th 2010
Review: CD

The North-German band Mandrake was formed at the end of last century and in the early years they brought a Gothic-oriented form of Doom / Death Metal. However, when the band signed to Greyfall Records, and after the recruitment of female singer Birgit Lau, the style became catchier and more accessible. Every single release was filled with rather poppy Gothic Metal songs, balancing between neo-ballads and epic Goth Metal hymns with a clean sound and an easy-listening approach.
And that’s why I am pleased with this newest studio recording, which lasts for fifty minutes. Innocence Weakness is heavier than before (except for their self-produced 1998-debut, Forever). The album includes more grunts, the riffs are more firm, the rhythm is much more oppressing, and the sound is the most massive one in years. This time the whole gets closer to ‘Doom Metal’ again, and even the lyrics, dealing with the forces of nature and the super-natural, are more mature again.
I think this Gothic / Doom / Death recording is Mandrake’s strongest release since the beginning of the new millennium – yet nothing more…
Produced by front man Lutz de Putter and former session musician Jörg Uken (the guy behind the Soundlodge Studio, and known as producer from more extreme acts as Inhume, Dew-Scented, Mephistopheles, God Dethroned, The Seventh etc).

70/100

Ivan Tibos.