By the thousand shields that bare the symbol of unshaved cunt it's nice to be the sole responsible for the spreading of the promotional material in the magazine, thus having the ability to grab some promos for you (ha ha ha ha... ha, the last laugh). My first contact with Eternal Tears of Sorrow took place back in 2001 by checking out their previous album A Virgin And A Whore. Though the store salesman describe them as gothic rock with female vocals (!) I was impressed with their high class melodic / atmospheric death (better should say extreme) metal.
And it took them six years to release a new album (the band took a lengthy break back in 2002) but it is a good one. Those of you familiar with the sound of their previous work will not be surprised with the material in the new album. In fact this album sounds like it was released a year after A Virgin.... All the elements included there are amplified here. Their mixture of power / atmospheric / extreme / symphonic metal and extreme / clean male / clean female vocals is damn good.
The first two tracks are not so impressive. Yet from the third track (that in my opinion is also the best one in the album) Red Dawn Rising the band raises the level and keeps the interest of the listener very high up till the end. Though overloaded with keyboards the album manages to avoid the characterization of gay due the band's ability to composed multi-layered tunes.
As for the production... what can I say? The album carries the preset sound of all bands from Finland? From power pop to unholy vegetarian grind they all have this specific sound - like there's a law over there demanding all music exported to carry the same sound. I strongly believe that if Beyonce was from Finland she would have the same exact sound...