The Abbey : "Word of Sin'

Hailing from bands like Man Eating Tree and Shape of Despair, this doom band out of Finland , does what I wish Ghost did, by playing dark metal, with catchy layer vocals . The cadence and how the vocals are layered is what brings Ghost to mind. Unlike Ghost this has the balls of metal to it even when draped in doomy goth finery. It took a while for the Ghost thing to sink in. I am not sure if it is intentional or not, only this band can answer it. I am not going to fault them if it is, the reasons I hate Ghost if inverted would be the reasons this band works. The vocals are hooky , but not pop masquerading as metal. There is an occult subject matter to the lyrics, but they are not trying to be Satanists for Halloween. 

Natalie Koskinen from Shape of Despair sings on this album, but does not really make an impression until the second song, when there is a break allowing her to soar over the gloom. They build up impressive momentum leading into this song and are able to make a chilling dynamic shift,  "Crystallion' is beautifully dark in the despondence it creates.  It is admirable how they shift from melody to melody. If there is any justice in the world they should at least earn a quarter of the success Ghost does, though they do not dress up in costumes to sell their show. "Starless" is the doomiest song yet on this album but it works more off the kind of soaring atmospheric dynamic Type O would allow their songs to fly off into the clouds with. They roar back with a more driving metallic chug on "Desert Temple" which adheres to expectations of metal, but not the charm of who they introduced themselves as on the first half of the album. It still works more than it does not. 

I like hearing his voice drop into more of a baritone croon with "Widow's Will". It paints a darker more deliberate picture than the previous song. Things get more metallic again on "Queen of Pain". It falls neatly in the spectrum of what we consider doom here, with little owed to Black Sabbath in the process. As you can imagine a song that is a prequel is more of an intro than a song unto itself. At over twelve minutes I am not sure "Old Ones" needs an intro. Things change six minutes into the song following a nice guitar solo, though I think they could have split this into two songs at this point. The keyboard solo is a bit excessive, but I appreciate where they wanted to go with it. It could have been trimmed down by three minutes there. Overall though, I will give this album a 9.5, I really enjoyed it and look forward to many more listens.