I perceive music like food since I remember and understand myself; if an ingredient is missing, the failure is at the gates. In the extreme gothic Metal project's case (named LORD AGHEROS), this ingredient is the salt which means the flat and slovenly sound and that's the main drawback with the atmospheric Metal bands; the music result should allow all the instruments to be heard in the proper balance and not using listener's imagination to reach the desirable outcome. "Of Beauty And Sadness" is the third release for Gerassimos Evangelou's LORD AGHEROS (wanting to follow SUMMONING and VINTERRIKET's footsteps) and the less promising for my tastes.

It's really nice to put emotions between melodies and create a magical and obscure world, following even folklore motives and melancholic moods. But it's also quite dangerous for the final outcome; a single slip is enough to lose the right path and be found in front of mistaken thresholds. During the opening track of the album for the first time, my expectations became really big: traveling sounds from the exotic Arabian dry land was sufficient to take me in deep dive in the creative mysticism and make me even hungrier for the rest of the album. When I reached "The Quiet Inside The Storm" though, I got deeply disappointed; the greedy sloppiness and the music mess of this track was the beginning of LORD AGHEROS end for me and my ears. This could be sounded cruel but when there are so many atmospheric bands out there, the competition is really hard and should be a standard and self-knowledge for an artist to think the reasons why recording an album. The low tempo parts and the abundant keyboards are not everything, but remain the best way to fall asleep.

I don't wanna give a grade to this release because I don't think that is fair for someone who has creative feelings and music anxieties to dance on nothing. On the other hand, I couldn't take it seriously and convince myself that I was listening to a professional work. Maybe Italy in music is not my thing after all.