### Rapture: Futile

#### 26/01/10 || Smalley

So, the other Rapture albums already have positive reviews on GD, and I dig these guys, so it makes perfect sense that I finish up the cycle and review “Futile”, their debut effort. While “Futile” doesn’t have quite as developed a sound as their subsequent records do, it’s still a very good introduction to Rapture’s melancholy, depressed style; just imagine if Katatonia had kept the growls after “Brave murder day”, and you’ll have a good notion of what they sound like. You have depressing guitar work, depressing vocals, a depressing title… hell, even the album cover here is depressing!!! But, if you’re going to get down-in-the-dumps with any album, “Futile” is a very good one to do it to.

The intro track makes for a good first impression of Rapture’s style, with its soothing, beauty and the beast-mix of acoustic & electric riffing, and “To forget” only immerses us deeper, since it’s the first time we get to hear Petri Eskelinen’s skill with both his depressed clean vocals, and his desperate growling. Petri gives good vocals all throughout the album, vocals that suit the despair-ridden lyrics very well: “Feeling lonely in a crowd/Forever passing a thousand nameless homes and lights/I tried closing my eyes/I hated my reflection/Those bitter eyes, and their thousand hates”.

That’s from “(About) leaving” by the way, the album closer, and a highly recommended song to anyone unfamiliar with the album. But, I don’t want to give the impression that the guitars are just slackers here either, since they’re constantly giving us beautiful, fluid, and depressed (naturally) riffage. In addition to that, Rapture does a hell of a good job at balancing their heavier riffs with great, clean, melodic guitar lines, as well as giving us a very good balance of fast and mid-tempo sections, proving in yet another way how damn skilled this band is with contrasts, and why they’re worth paying attention to.

And, while it is disappointing how much Petri growls here without quite enough clean singing to match, Rapture soon corrected that mistake by bringing in a new guy to growl (a pinch-growler, perhaps?), allowing Petri to just work on his clean singing, so there was nothing but better things to come for Rapture from here. In the end, while “Futile” isn’t an amazing record, it remains a distinct and enjoyable one nonetheless, providing us with beautifully bleak metal, a welcome alternative to all the DIEDIEDIE, pissed-off sort of bands that are so prevalent in this genre (not that I don’t like them as well). It’s a fine place to start with this excellent band, and further leads me to suspect there’s something special for metal bands in Finland’s water supply. Or something.

- Information
- Released: 1999
- Label: Black Star Foundation
- Website: www.rapture.net
- Band
- Petri Eskelinen: vocals
- Tomi Ullgren: lead guitar
- Jarno Salovaara: rhythm & acoustic guitar
- Jani Öhman: bass
- Samu Ruotsalainen: drums
- Sami Karttunen: keyboards

- Tracklist
- 01. Intro
- 02. To Forget
- 03. This is Where I Am
- 04. The Fall
- 05. While the World Sleeps
- 06. Futile
- 07. Someone I (Don’t) Know
- 08. (About) Leaving