{"id":144421,"date":"2025-11-21T00:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/144421\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T00:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:13:11","slug":"old-night-mediterranean-melancholy-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/144421\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Night – Mediterranean Melancholy Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Loneliness is a theme ripe for the sadboi genre, and given the epidemic of loneliness in our modern era, it\u2019s a relatable one. Yet Croatian doom outfit, Old Night, tackles a more obscure topic on Mediterranean Melancholy\u2014lighthouse keepers. This record marks the quintet\u2019s fourth since forming ten years ago, and it\u2019s the first with Ivan Han\u017eek stepping up as lead vocalist, following the departure of his brother, Matej, who left for personal reasons. Sadboi doom is typically ape fodder, as evidenced by the glowing review<\/a> for Dawn of Solace earlier this year, yet somehow this ended up in my lap. Time to find out if Steel Druhm will be shedding tears at this missed opportunity to review one of his favorite genres.<\/p>\n

Old Night certainly has a lot in common with sadboi stalwarts, Dawn of Solace. They mix pensive cleans with harsher growls, leaning much more heavily into the cleans. Songs often begin with melancholic guitar leads, Insomnium<\/a>-style, and delve into Novembers Doom<\/a>-esque rhythmic chugs, but Old Night plays at a much slower pace than these other bands. These elements mix nicely on tunes like \u201cStormbirds,\u201d where an Eastern-tinged melody combines with Han\u017eek\u2019s solemn tones to tug at the heartstrings. It builds up to an impassioned call to \u201cUnleash the storm \/ unleash the stormbirds,\u201d among the record\u2019s highlight moments. The formula throughout Mediterranean Melancholy is consistent, but breaks on the finale, \u201cThe Loneliness of Lighthouse Keepers.\u201d This song opens with a bit of soft rock arpeggios before Han\u017eek croons about a lighthouse keeper and a man on the moon. It mixes magical realism with raw emotion and gentle strums with heavy riffs to wring tears from attentive listeners. It stands as the album\u2019s emotional peak.<\/p>\n

\ufeffMediterranean Melancholy by Old Night<\/a><\/p>\n

Compared to the likes of Dawn of Solace, Old Night proves to be a bit rough around the edges. This is most apparent in the vocals. Han\u017eek sings his heart out, but his pitch is all over the place. He fares better when singing at a lower pitch, such as the beginning of \u201cChasing Yesterdays,\u201d but at higher volumes, his voice leans more shout-y than sing-y. Luka Petrovi\u0107\u2019s growls similarly lack the oomph required to be effective. A good growl here and there would certainly help to darken the tone, but it feels like Petrovi\u0107 holds himself back the few times he steps in. Instrumentally, Old Night fares better. On guitars, Bojan Frian and Ivan Han\u017eek excel at the sort of melodic leads that ooze sorrow. They strum some memorable hooks, though I wish these hooks had more airtime. The production doesn\u2019t often allow Petrovi\u0107\u2019s bass to make itself known, but he lets loose with a nice bass line on the finale. Similarly, Nikola Jovanovi\u0107 commands the kit with some hefty, slow-paced beats that add to the record\u2019s gravitas. These guys can play, but are let down by production and songwriting choices.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Underwhelming vocals are rarely a dealbreaker for me, but Old Night\u2019s biggest issue lies in its songwriting. While the record wraps up at a tidy 43 minutes, each tune ranges from the seven to nine-minute mark, and not a single one earns its stay. While Mediterranean Melancholy features traditional song structures better suited to four to five-minute bites, Old Night pads each track with tedious instrumental passages and slow, repetitive choruses. Most egregious is \u201cGhosts,\u201d which gets through its full progression after four minutes but continues on for another five and a half minutes, seemingly in search of a reason to keep going. Only \u201cThe Loneliness of Lighthouse Keepers\u201d justifies going beyond six minutes, but even this could benefit from snipping a minute or two off.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Old Night doesn\u2019t quite scratch that sadboi itch. The elements are all there: the melodies, the lyrical content, the musicianship. Yet they fall prey to a common pitfall\u2014bloat. With some cutting, Mediterranean Melancholy could have been a serviceable EP. As it stands, the long, meandering songs reveal how tough it is for doom to toe the line between causing listeners to shed tears of sorrow or tears of boredom. Next time I hope they can hone in on their strengths and trim the fat.<\/p>\n

Rating: 2.0\/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Meuse Music Records<\/a>
Websites: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Official Site<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: November 21st, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loneliness is a theme ripe for the sadboi genre, and given the epidemic of loneliness in our modern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[44405,9342,88623,88624,11435,146,85,88625,46,88626,88627,409,75999,88628,88629,1529,1530],"class_list":["post-144421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-2-0","tag-9342","tag-croatian-metal","tag-dawn-of-solace","tag-doom-metal","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-insomnium","tag-israel","tag-mediterranean-melancholy","tag-meuse-music-records","tag-music","tag-nov25","tag-novembers-doom","tag-old-night","tag-review","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}