Their debut was an emerging doom statement, this follow up is “doom-laden Serpentine groove” as stated in the PR material. The immediate improvement from their debut is the vocal delivery of Jimi Lehtijoki, he reminds me very much of Christian Linderson (Count Raven, Saint Vitus, Goatess, Lord Vicar). The presence and production of the album is much brighter than the debut enabling a use of more metal riffs that you could associate with the NWoBHM scene. There is a classy mix of those riffs and real down to earth traditional doom, thus, genuinely worth the 5 years wait between releases.
I think this is a simple but effective album. ‘Death’s Tower’ is a fulfilling tune and if you want to delve further into the doom world then take a wander with ‘August 1972’. The game changer as I said earlier is the vocal. The way the delivery exhumes such a haunting sound, well, that’s a special way to depict your art. The music, well, you are not going to hear anything new or ground breaking, but it works, it’s very effective. The ambience of each track the sound is transferred to your soul and the vibrancy of the song structures and guitar sound makes a marked improvement over their debut.
Overall, traditional, classic doom, call it what you want, it’s a cool metal inspired release that’s certainly taken this Finnish band a few steps higher than their earlier output. It’s been a while, it’s been worth the wait.
(8.5/10 Paul Maddison)
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