Eternity Magazin (www.eternitymagazin.de) (translated from German) I believe I have found my personal highlight in 2005, and it is delivered to me by a brand-new label from Israel (Totalrust Music). The Americans Wraith of the Ropes play what they call "Horror Metal", however, deliver with "Ada" a great Funeral Death Doom album, that they also do not deny, but refer to the fact that they don't feel stylistically bound, and their next album could sound completely different. With "Ada" they overthrow the listener, in any case, into almost an hour of completely claustrophobic coldness, into an atmosphere of musical power full of dirt and blood, and it seems she could never probably create high speed Metal. Horror is even more than just one sequence, cheap horror-film Samples and highspeed grunts. The music on this album is dirty, raw and psychopathic. One has without fail the feeling here of a purulent soul revealing her morbid desires. This is a genuinely worthy soundtrack for a horror film, and various elements in the kind of the synthesizers they use also seem to relate her inspiration from just that musical genre. The single songs are hypnotic and captivating, the guitars (typical for this genre) are extremely deep and dirty. The singer has an interesting Black-Metallic variation on typical Funeral Doom Grunts which one himself must have heard in order to understand them. Their coordinated lyrics are of exceptionally high, even excellent quality which allow us close on a literary mind behind the overall plan come through absolutely accurately in the music. They are probably constructed, very perceptive and in a far-reaching manner, certainly stylistic and make use of an entire bandwidth of poetic style means. A (morbid) pleasure is to be immersed itself by means of parallel reading of the booklet which allows you even more deeply into the musical world of this sick duet and all the lethargy, hopelessness, loneliness, nightmares and hallucinations to live through this total depression and schizophrenia. Afterwards in spite of all the coldness, in spite of all the ugliness one may not awake at all from this parallel world. The positive general view, by the way, is rounded by an interesting not less dirty, and above all (in the USA) probably sexually very provocative cover artwork. Result: Doom fans blindly take action, but lovers of other extreme genres should also risk an ear. rating: 6 / 6 25.11.2005 Tim Neuhoff ---------------------------------------------------------------- Dare Devil Magazine (www.daredevil.de) There´s a whole lot going on in the Doom scene lately...I mean...sometimes I really don´t understand all the names for this genre...Ambient Doom, Doom Rock, Sludge Doom, Melodic Doom...damn...let´s reduce it to just the word Doom...ok?! I heard a lot of Doom lately and there was good Doom and bad Doom (it´s unbelievable how many times a human being can use Doom in the first two lines...), but Wraith Of The Ropes is somewhere in between...I don´t know...after listening to this CD a couple of times I began to like their way to bring dark and cold-hearted music to the people. The music is really slow and a mix out of good riffs which are a bit to far in the backround sometimes, rumbling bass and drums and a shitload of samples and keyboards. I´m normally not that kind of person who likes to much digital stuff in music, but in the case of Wraith Of The Ropes it sounds pretty interesting...a little bit like Godflesh on a handful of downers...really slow and hypnotizing...kind of Horror-Movie melodies...like in movies of Fulci and Bava...dark, myterious and morbid. That all would be nothing without the vocals of Scarecrow Rottinghouse...strange name, isn´t it...S. Rottinghouse just crawls through the whole CD...it´s not that regular crawling...it´s more like speaking with the devil´s tongue...kind of cool, but sometimes it goes a bit on my nerves...all in all a well done release besides the regular Doom stuff, but these guys don´t wanna be a Doom band anyway, cause the next record could be a whole different sound...check them out as long they´re Doom and another thing is you don´t need a air condition in the summer...just put in Wraith Of The Ropes and it´s getting cold...f**ing cold....not bad for a debut...here and there it could be more alternation...makes me look forward to their next output. rating: 4 / 7 RB ------------------------------------------------------------- Quintessence: Extreme Music Magazine (www.quintessence.sh) Yeah, this is one hell of an interesting album that I have in my hands, namely “Ada” from Wraith Of The Ropes. The label describes their music as horror metal. There is nothing wrong with that, but a bit unclear to me and probably others. I would describe the music as funeral doom with dark metal and atmospheric influences. But it’s definitely very unique and interesting. Wraith Of The Ropes was formed in 2001 in Hamilton, Ohio and started as a trio, namely Scarecrow Rottinghouse, E.M. Hearst and V. Rottinghouse. V. Rottinghouse however left the band in 2004. By the way, E.M. is also the founder of Torture Wheel, an extreme doom metal band and Scarecrow joins him. Wraith Of The Ropes has some comparisons with that sound too, but creates more a horrifying sphere. Ada is the debut album of this band and contains 7 tracks, including an intro and clocks almost one hour. “Ada“ has a certain concept and that’s why the music has a slow tempo. The band doesn’t call themselves a doom band and future releases could contain a different sound. But for now, I think that “Ada” is definitely recommended for doom fans, but also other people who are into extreme music could check this one out. The reason for this is that we have to deal with, in my opinion, a unique and interesting sound. André