Review by Jophelerx on September 3, 2024.

The Sins of Thy Beloved were a seminal "gothic doom" band for me, and quickly became a staple for me to listen to during high school, around the same time I was getting into things like Tiamat, The Gathering, and Dark Tranquillity; sort of your surface-level "dark metal" starter pack, so to speak. That's not to say that any of these bands are bad by any means, just more visible and perhaps accessible than other bands in their respective genres, and in the case of The Sins of Thy Beloved I'm not even sure if that's entirely true. Really I just happened to stumble across them on Wikipedia and fell in love immediately, always having been a sucker for good violin, and I really latched onto the angelic beauty and sorrow that female vocalist Anita Auglend was able to convey. I believe an upload of the Perpetual Desolation Live video on YouTube was what really sold the band to me circa the summer of 2009, but as I listened to their two studio offerings I slowly realized that Lake of Sorrow held more interesting and grounded ideas and melodies than its successor, and this album eventually took over as my go-to for the enchantingly depressive atmosphere I often craved, alongside Tiamat's Prey. 15 years later I think this still holds up as an all-time classic, and while I don't listen to it as often as I used to, due to having discovered so much more music in the intervening years, I still get a lot of enjoyment from its gloomy brand of symphonic metal, and while the whole "beauty and the beast" gothic metal style has remained and produced many other, more successful acts in the 21st century, I still think Lake of Sorrow is one of the high-water marks for the style over a quarter century after its release.

The most obviously unique aspect of The Sins of Thy Beloved is their decision to employ the services of lead violinist Pete Johansen, whose somber string performances often provide the main instrumental melody for the songs here, while the guitars most often just provide simple, heavy chugs to give the pieces a sense of darkness and gravity, rather than taking center stage as they would in a lot of metal albums. That's not to say that the guitar work here is unimportant, though the guitar tone is probably more memorable than the parts themselves - it's huge, crushing, and dominates the bottom end of the album's sound, mimicking the hellish depths beckoning and providing a counterpoint to the sorrowful, yet almost heavenly tones of the violin, keyboards, and ethereal soprano vocals of Anita Auglend. There are, of course, harsh male vocals to accentuate the hellish darkness of the guitars, and Glenn Nordbe does a strong job with both of these, portraying the beast archetype of the tried and true "beauty and the beast" style with believable hopelessness and despondence. I say "tried and true," but in 1998, it wasn't a very well-established style, with Theatre of Tragedy having just popularized it with their first two albums, so this is certainly an early example, though there are other individual cases that predate this album, like the sparse female vocals in Paradise Lost's Gothic or Funeral's Tragedies. Still, the band's decision to use this technique in a more symphonic metal style is an early example, and it works beautifully here; clearly the songwriting was well thought out with every aspect in mind, and the soundscapes the band can create with the dual vocals, layers of keyboards, violin, and death/doom inspired downtuned guitars is unique, memorable, and at times breathtaking.

There are no tracks here I would call "bad," though ironically the title track might be my choice for the weakest piece on the album due to its lack of Anita Auglend's vocals for most of the song. Though, to its credit, it does stand out as a more humble, straightforward piece versus the lush decadence present on most of the other cuts, and the central melody of the song stands out for its wistful sense of remembering happiness in a world now devoid of it, and the bass is actually audible here at times and contributes to the buildup of the melody in places. Still, its placement in the middle of the album is strange as it gives off a fairly different vibe from the other tracks and sort of pulls you out of the atmosphere that the band does such a great job building up for the rest of the album's duration, but I've never skipped it. "The Kiss" is also slow and clunky in places and probably could've done with some additional cuts as it is one of the album's longer songs at around 9 minutes. Not that the band isn't capable of pulling off longer numbers, as the opener "My Love" is one of the very best songs here, throwing the listener into the depths of despair and holding on for a majestic 9-and-a-half minute, but "The Kiss" feels a bit padded out at times.

While the tone of the album is mostly very consistent outside of the aforementioned title track, there are times when different aspects of the band are highlighted, like "Until the Dark" which focuses more on the melodic higher end, namely Auglend's female vocals, Johansen's violin, and the keyboard skills of Anders Thue and Ingfrid Stensland. These two definitely shouldn't be forgotten in this massive eight-piece collective of a band, as I don't think the fullness or otherworldliness often present in the sound here would succeed as well as it does without the prominent yet tasteful keyboard arrangements here, and this track is a great example of that. "Worthy of You" also opens with a 2-and-a-half minute violin solo, a bizarrely bold choice but one that actually works quite well with its monomaniacal minimalism forcing you to focus on the plaintive echoes of Johansen's masterful evocation of sorrow and pain. Ultimately, "All Alone" is probably my favorite track here, though "My Love" is close. "All Alone" just has these mesmerizing keyboard and vocal melodies, the highlight of Auglend's talented vocal display here, absolutely stealing the show with her ethereal yet relatable pinings for a lost love, and the bridge section which features an insanely depressing violin melody and some absolutely heart-wrenching spoken word lines from Auglend is probably the rawest point here - I dare you to listen to this and not get a tear in your eye with how utterly hopeless and far from light Auglend sounds here.

While death/doom and symphonic gothic metal have both done very well and had tons of successful bands over the years, this marriage of the two styles is something that hasn't been replicated all that often, and in my opinion provides the best of both worlds - a foundation of monumentally heavy guitars but also on emphasis on a more ethereal sound that, due to its talented lead violinist who also plays incredibly professional and well-written passages, can't just be thrown together on a whim with a Casio keyboard by anyone. Anita Auglend is also a criminally overlooked female vocalist who may not have the technical prowess of some of her competitors but gets sorrowful vocals down better than just about anyone I've ever heard, rivaling and perhaps even surpassing the likes of Theatre of Tragedy's Liv Kristine or Tristania's Vibeke Stene in terms of sheer emotion and atmosphere. If you're looking for a dark metal band on the more accessible side that still maintains the heaviness that's often lacking in these types of projects, Lake of Sorrow is an experience you won't soon forget and something that should be heralded as a classic of the genre more often, evoking sorrow, pain, and loss just about as well as any group of musicians ever have.

Rating: 9.1 out of 10