Review by Lawrence Stillman on July 22, 2024.

So Dark The Suns is active once again in 2020 and released a new full length in 2021, and because of that I decided to check this album out. At a first glance this album is just your regular gothic+death/doom combo that many gothic metal bands have done in the past, nothing unique and original, and you'll be right. From the melodic guitar leads, easy to digest song structures, the contrasting death growls and soprano female vocals, and keyboards that really sells the image of a winterscape. But at the end of the day, this album is pretty uninspired and is frankly repetitive to a fault.

"Then why did you give them a 77? You dismissed Slaughter of the Soul for being repetitive too!" Well for starters, the songs here, while uninspired and repetitive, do not immediately show everything it has at you right off the bat, and instead they slowly reveal their colours, giving room for the songs to express themselves in the way the composer wishes to without sounding too hamfisted. Another thing is that contrast and juxtapositioning is the MO for gothic metal, from the harsh growls to the operatic cleans, to the heavy guitars and the ethereal keyboards, unlike the style of melodic death metal pioneered by Slaughter of the Soul that sounds similar from start to end without any semblance of dynamic and contrast. So you can say they are both repetitive, but in completely different ways.

The songs here, for all their repetition, are actually well crafted and does not bore the listener on their first listen, it is catchy, it is dark, and it is genuine, nothing sounds forced and unnecessary. The instrumentation here creates an image for the winterscape in audible form, not that unique in Nordic gothic metal bands, but Dark The Suns still manages to make it sound cold and atmospheric. Another thing about gothic bands with death/doom elements, this album is actually on the more accessible side, so for those people who want to explore the basics of extreme metal, this album is one of the better starting points for them.

This album is one of my favourite examples of "generic (insert genre) album", pretty basic, not unique, but at the end of the day, it is still a good album that is enjoyable from start to finish.

Highlights: 'Gone', 'All Ends In Silence'

Rating: 7.7 out of 10