It is hard to avoid some variation of death doom when looking for doom, sometimes I am forced to take what I can get. This one does have enough melancholy moments of melody to make them stand out. The Finnish are not known for doom, so this is not straight up doom. There are elements aside from death metal here. Some touches of post-rock and flourishes of almost neo folk. They are skilled musicians . Their is a progressive jammy part in the second song "Occult". The vocals are a mix of growls layered with singing. The sung vocals are not always their strength. A closer listen tells me this is do trying to sing in English causes their accents to clash with the way the lyrics are being phrased. The growls vocals are closer to Entombed. "Season of the Rain" is darker and more bleakly brooding. This darker more wandering side of the band is clearly their strength. It sometimes brings them closer to sludge , but sonically is pleasing to my ears.
Despite their best efforts there does seem to be more of a formula falling into place midway into the album. The verses open with form and vocals then they go off into a atmospheric jam, before converging back into the song with more power to bring the heavy. Granted this works for them, My fear is that it begin to make all the songs run together for me. When what you do has the kind of flow the song " Currents" has who care is you stray from the doom mood into more sludge feeling crunch. Here is heavier riff has hook to it and pulls you in.
The last song hits many of the same notes the previous songs did. It makes solid use of melody and takes you a moody trip through sludge tinged riffs and a depressive pondering. I will give this album a 9. I am unsure if I will hunt it down to load into the Ipod but I have enjoyed the time spent with it and it is well done. The production serves it well, for the ambitious scope of what they are doing these guys hit all the marks. If you are looking for progressive minded sludge with doom mods this is for you.
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