Paint your walls black, light those candles in the dark room, sit on your leather couch, pour in the glass some fine red wine and get ready for a trip in those parts of your soul where love meets sorrow and passion is expressed with tears. Entwine will make sure that your saddest memories will come on the top.
From the very first song you will find yourself being carried away by the melancholic tunes of this mix of goth metal and dark wave with some electronic parts. Though it's not what you call original music, Entwine have managed to put together all their influences (mainly from Paradise Lost, a bit of Sisters of Mercy and new Amorphis) with their very good ideas and create a CD that it is enjoyable till the last song.
Dark, melancholic and heavy are they keywords for their music. The voice (Mika Taurianen), deep and sorrowful, has the main role in the songs, followed by the amazing solid heavy guitar riffs and clean guitar solos. The keyboards create the perfect dark mood in the background while the rhythm section (bass and drums) does its best to tie up everything together.
The CD breaks out with 2 fast songs (Stream of Life and The Pit) that will make you want to get up and headbang in their wild dark rhythm. The tempo drops a bit in the middle of the album with some wonderful slow, melancholic songs that speak directly to your darkest places of your heart. One of their best moments is Until the End. Full of pain and eternal love, it's a song that you will want to listen on your last day on earth some minutes before you leave this world: So I pour my tears into your heart, we will drown into this love. Indeed the lyrics are also another strong part of this album.
The Limited Edition has also 2 bonus tracks, one of them being a cover of Tears are Falling by Paul Stanley (KISS).
If you are into gothic metal and you like dark and melancholic music then you must get the Time of Despair. It won't disappoint you, as it didn't disappoint me.