It depends on how attached your are to this sounding like H.I.M , as to how you are going to respond to the sounds gathered here. This feels in many ways like a logical place for him to pick up after where he left his former project . It is not until the third song , and title track that the darker goth leanings of his glory days are reflected. this is due in part to him singing more in his smoldering baritone, than the emotionally pleading tenderness his leads off the album with that owes more to 80s new wave pop sounding like 80s pop is a win in my book. I t works better than the perhaps overly delicate tones that comprise "Loveletting" which feels like the first sonic misstep to me. Did he get this sappy during the H.I.M" days ? Yes, and i was not a fan of it them either. The song's dynamics and where they end up taking you , largely compensates for this.
His voice has matured really well. This can be heard on how he layers it on "Foreverlost". This album is more atmospheric than what he used to do, at times this also makes it not as dark as i might prefer from in terms of the emotional spectrum his sound encompasses. In other words it gets too fucking happy for me. I went into this not expecting it to sound like H.I.M , so when it does on songs like "Salute the Sanguine" I am happily surprised. The guitars are never as driving as they once were, so the metal influence is out the door for sure. I am not opposed to his melodramatic emoting dominating the song, as long as it is a good song, which "In Trenodia" proves to be ,
The mood gets more Tears For Fears on " Heartful of Ghosts". The guitar solo on this could have been moved up in the mix, I think the production is the less rock thing about this album and it could have benefited from a fatter bass tone. If you think about goth bands the formula they share is the bass tone is heavy that way the guitar can lay back and create the atmosphere, so a better bass tone even when they are just indulging in power ballads, at some points the feel reminds me of the newer mellow Opeth, when it comes to his croon. The instrumental before the last song is well done it just feels more like an interlude. Thankfully things get marginally darker for the last song, whyere i notice he hardly ever uses his falsetto until now.I will give this one an 9.5, aside from the happy moments and weak bass tone, it is surprisingly well written, not that I was not already clued into the fact he is more than capable of cranking out slapper, it is just good to hear that he still has it. while the production is not as dark as I might like the vocals are are really dialed in.
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