After some spins of Mariae Nascenti's second full length cd, I must say I'm a bit disappointed. I've always found his live sets truly engaging, and the "Morituri Te Salutant" debut was promising, though probably not fully mature. The same thing could be told about "Raise Your Paw...", but as a whole, the album is much less energic and captivating to my ears. Coming with a lavish booklet and lengthy titles (Constellation/Mt. Zion-style), it is fairly varied in a very short time (10 tracks, less than 33 minutes), which is a double-edged sword, since it sounds too eclectic while many potentially strong ideas are not developed. The original industrial-ambient element is reduced to a minimum, and when the ninth track, "Amavo addormentarmi...", opened with a bass-heavy drone, I was hoping that it could lead to some darker territory - but it was only a fragment. The Coil influence is still strong in some spoken passages, like the opening "Blood Runs through My Veins...", or in the obsessive, beat-driven "These Giddy Memories..." (alas, with some over the top opera vocals), but then you find a piano sonata, a sort of drunken ballad ("Everything is Fine..."), an anaemic pop-rock instrumental ("Remember to Forget..."), and a good final melodic piece with more flat spoken vocals I could do without ("The Story of the Sad Bear..."). My favourite track is the cover of Slowdive's "Dagger" sung by a massive church-like chorus, but the song is so beautiful that you can hardly go wrong with it. I have nothing against even wildly varied works, but here one feels the lack of a strong binding theme, or atmosphere, and half of the tracks are just nothing special.