I think everybody is used to get mellifluous, glossy polished gothic-rock with chart and hit potential from Finnish acts like HIM or Negative. Hailing from sunny Milan THE LOVECRAVE disabuse us. No androgynous hey-babes with an excessive use of hairspray and the color pink beg for young teens money but an optically not unattractive front-woman with a proper rock voice und her male mates in the background compete for the favor of the target groups in and beyond the gothic-scene.
Singer Francesca and guitar player Tank have written The Angel And The Rain in less than a month. Musically speaking, both of them are no unknowns to the scene – Francesca had been on a solo trip backed by a major label in Italy. Therefore in the short time a solid album was created, whereas the vocalist allowed free play to her creativity and developed a story with a manga-like cartoon character merging the songs to a concept-album.
Apart from the voice I miss outstanding, innovative moments on The Angel And The Rain marking THE LOVECRAVE off the Scandinavian competitors. As musical influences the info sheet mentions bands like Iron Maiden or even The Chemical Brothers. The bottom line is that we deal with an old-fashioned mixture of classical rock-elements and nu-rock-like passages, which are enhanced with some electronics, but hardly astonish the listener, and which are smoothly polished. Nevertheless, besides a lot of bland stuff and pathetic moments (“thank you god, thank you for the darkness.”) one will find some real highlights, for what the reviewer reaches for the sack filled with points. Opening track Vampires (The Light That We Are) is a powerful rock-song, allures with a catchy refrain and almost strikingly kitschy but dramatic synth-elements. Can You Hear Me? is the highlight of the album and cut from the same cloth: lulling piano-intro as same as –outro cover an intoxicating song that has potential to hit the charts and wherein the singer gives her very best. There the Italians have done all very well, but some guitar riffs I suppose to have heard at a song from Moonspell. Near the end of the album the cover-version of Duran Duran’s The Chauffer marks a time travel to the beginning of the 80s. THE LOVECRAVE jazz up the more sedate original song and put it into a dancefloor-hitting guitar-inferno. Bravo!
These three songs save the Finnish Italians with the female singer and her powerful infatuating voice for the average mediocrity and let me enunciate a buy recommendation for fans of HIM or Negative.