Bloody Hammers : "Lovely Sort of Death"

I get excited when I hear about a doom band going goth. Actually playing an album versus the hype surrounding it  reminds me my definition of doom is different than mainstream music media. Finds Anders closer to to his solo dark wave work, the harder rocker elements are not fused as gracefully as say Type O Negative. Ander's voice is more delicate than peter Steele's was . I do like the guitar melody trickles over the beginning of "Lights Come Alive". The more rock elements merged into this song more naturally, I would not say it's aggressive enough to be considered metal by any means. When Ander's voice raises into a more rock register I'm still a little reluctant to believe him. I had quiet a few albums like this in the 90s.

There is  more emotional tone to "When the Reaper Comes".  I might need to go back and dig into the old Sentenced albums. The drums  help build the dynamic, but the bass and guitar need some serious weight added to them in order to be heavy. I appreciate what this album wants to be, but in reality it's something entirely different than the intention behind it. The first song that finds them stepping closer to metal is "Infinite Gaze to the Sun" . The drummer steps up a little to meet the challenge. While it has more drive to it, there is more cheese than substance to "Stoke the Fire" and Anders' voice is a little awkward on the verses. There is a more lumbering doom like pound to "Ether". The mood was maintained for the verses as the vocals that a very 90s feeling hushed urgency.

They return to back to dark wave on "Shadow Out of Time". The vocals are very melodramatic , which can sometimes be very effective in certain phrases. I like the fact that this song is very dark. Darkness is not the only quality these songs can play off of, as it is present in the creepy bass line to "Catastrophe', but the vocals make it seem like Stabbing Westward. "Astral Traveller" has a little more rock driving it. The vocals don't really sell me on it  I think Anders is more comfortable in his dark wave voice and grit is not his forte. Overall this album takes me back to a very dark yet fun place in my drug summers of yester year, I might have been more into this then, however right now I'll round it up to an 8.