This band took the number five spot on our top 10 Doom albums of 2023 with their last album "The Loss of Beauty" so they have a great deal to live up to based on the magnitude of their legacy, as their 2017 "Black Drapes of Tomorrow" made the top 10 best prog albums of that year, showing how their style has changed over the years. The opening track to their 5th album is a little more straightforward but powerful and melodic. The emphasis feels like it is more placed on songwriting, though the second song sounds more like My Dying Bride, so perhaps this is another step into a different corner of doom. "Bleed to Life" is somewhat in line with this sthought has it feels almost like H.I.M. It is well written, so I have few complaints.
The title track follows the path laid out by the previous song. There is more rock drive on this album than doom despair. Growled vocals surface when this song builds up. There is also another factor that has not held as much of a prescence this time around. There is a slight return to death metal on "Dreaming of a Scar' which is effective as the album was beginning to get dynamically flat, working off the same vibe. This sounds like it could be 80s-era Sentenced. The tow vocals styles balance each other out. We are back to the more melancholic metal for "Society is the Murderer".
The flirt with death-doom for the crushing mood of "The Numbing Void," which feels like a step sideways. The drums pound on as a driving force for "Another Breath" that feels more like Paradise Lost. The last song follows a similar formula, though it leads off in a more melodic direction, but still has the dark Euro-metal of the 90s feel. This might not be the most original formula in play, however, it is entertaining and sounds great I will give this album a 9.
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